


If Found, Please Return

by Llywela



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), The Professionals
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-18
Updated: 2012-07-18
Packaged: 2017-11-10 05:51:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/462917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llywela/pseuds/Llywela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crossover. CI5 and UNIT would have been around at about the same time in the late 1970s. CI5 weren't keen on other agencies treading over their perceived jurisdiction and UNIT were learning to cope without the Doctor after his departure. So what happened when they found their investigations overlapping?</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Found, Please Return

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: CI5 and all characters connected therein belong to Mark 1 Productions. UNIT and all characters connected therein belong to the BBC. I have borrowed them for this story and am making no profit from this.  
> Spoilers/Warnings: This story assumes all readers will be familiar with both CI5 and UNIT. It is set sometime after Doctor Who 13.01 Terror of the Zygons (Fourth Doctor era), and somewhere around season 2 of The Professionals. The Doctor himself does not appear in this story.  
> Author's Note: Nothing deep or meaningful here, this is a straight-up case story. Being an intra-genre crossover, it is leaning toward crack fiction, from a Pros perspective, I know, but it's crack fiction that takes itself seriously, grounding UNIT within the Pros 'verse and playing the story completely straight. Just go with it, 'kay?  
> Acknowledgements: There is no one I can blame for this except me. But Sue egged me on.

**CI5CI5CI5**

 "Hang about, he's on the move." Doyle surreptitiously adjusted the wing mirror as he spoke, to get a better angle on the target.

Duty called. Bodie dropped from idle chit-chat back to business at once. "About time," he muttered, shifting position slightly ready to pull off in pursuit after sitting still just a little too long for comfort – surveillance was never a favourite assignment for the CI5 agents to pull, especially when the target was as boring as this one was turning out to be. He waited for Morley's car to pass before gently easing his own into gear and pulling out to follow, allowing a couple of other vehicles to slide between them as cover.

Morley turned left at the junction. Bodie followed. "So what went wrong?" he asked, picking up the threads of the conversation interrupted by Clive Morley's sudden burst of activity.

"What went wrong when?" Doyle nodded toward the target. "Left again up ahead."

"What do you mean, 'what went wrong when'?" Bodie took the turn. "At the weekend – I thought you were going out with what's-her-name?"

 "Pat," said Doyle.

"Pat. I thought you were going out with Pat?"

"Yeah, I was."

"Well?"

"Well, what?"

"Doyle!"

"Yeah, all right, all right. She binned me, if you really want to know."

Bodie laughed. "She never did. I thought you had it all planned, big romantic weekend?"

"That's right, rub it in," Doyle grumbled. "Right at the lights."

"I have got eyes, you know." Bodie accelerated to make it through the junction and around the corner as amber became red, then slowed again to resume their steady, stealthy pursuit of the target, who so far had had a fairly unremarkable day, not even remotely worth their while tailing him. Rain began to splatter against the windscreen, a few drops at first that then settled into a more persistent shower. He flicked the wipers on and squinted at the road ahead to check that Morley was still in sight. "What's this bloke up to?" he wondered aloud.

Doyle snorted. "Your guess is as good as mine, mate."

"I mean, Cowley said –"

"Yeah, Cowley says a lot of things. Never anything useful, though, is it?"

"Well, he has his reasons," Bodie pointed out, although he shared his partner's frustration. They often had to work without much in the way of background information, especially in the early stages of an investigation, but Cowley had been even more close-mouthed than usual about this little fact-finding mission. 'Clive Morley: seek, find and follow' was about all he'd given them to be going on with, no details attached, maybe because there were details he didn't want them to know – but maybe because there were no real details to give.

"Be nice to have a bit more to go on, for once," said Doyle. "'S all I'm saying."

"Yeah, well, if wishes were horses, we'd be rolling in it, wouldn't we?" Bodie span the wheel to follow Morley's car around another corner. "Morley's connected to Stanton and Galbraith and that mob, isn't he?" he mused. "So if there is something in the wind, it's got to be big. And Cowley's just itching for something solid he can pin on that little lot and make stick."

"Isn't he just, the slippery devils," Doyle agreed. "Hang about, where's he going now?"

The traffic was getting heavier now – the rain, too – and Bodie had to concentrate to keep the target in sight. "If we're really lucky," he suggested, "he'll lead us right to – bloody hell!" He slammed on the brakes as a car unexpectedly reversed out of a drive right in front of him, then wound his window down and yelled at the idiot until he got out of the way again.

"Where'd he go?" Doyle was leaning forward, scanning the road ahead for any glimpse of Morley's car.

There was no sign of it. Just up ahead was a four-way junction and Morley was long gone. Bodie groaned. "No chance."

"Oh, brilliant." Doyle slumped back into his seat. "Cowley's gonna love this."

"Bags you to be the one to tell him!" Bodie promptly retorted.

 

**UNITUNITUNIT**

"No, sir. Same story as before. The signal had cut out by the time we got there and whoever was sending it had already cleared out," Regimental Sergeant-Major Benton reported, standing straight-backed before Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart's desk at UNIT's London HQ, chin held high, knowing only too well how little his commanding officer would like what he was hearing.

"And the technical boys still can't tell us anything useful about the transmission," the Brigadier noted, frowning his exasperation.

"No, sir." Benton shared his frustration. "They won't even commit themselves to whether it's human or alien in origin." He hesitated slightly before adding, "The Doctor would have been able to tell us by now…"

"Yes, I'm sure he would, but the Doctor isn't here, is he?" the Brigadier tartly retorted, "Off gallivanting around the universe again with Miss Smith, no telling when he'll be back."

 _If ever_.

The unspoken words hung between them for a moment, and Benton almost wished he hadn't brought it up – the Brigadier got so morose these days when reminded of the Doctor's continued absence. They'd come to rely heavily on their eccentric, enigmatic scientific advisor, over the years, but he'd had itchy feet from the start, and now that he'd got that old box of his working properly again and had given into his wanderlust once more, the intervals between his ever more infrequent returns to home base were growing longer and longer. The time would come, maybe already had, when he would stop coming back here altogether. So if extraterrestrials were going to insist on visiting Earth still, UNIT were going to have to find ways of dealing with them without the Doctor, or so the Brigadier kept saying…however ill-equipped for the task they felt, at times.

"It still seems too much of a coincidence that such an unusual transmission should have started up so soon after that ship came down," the Brigadier continued after a pause, almost as if the thorny issue of the Doctor had never been broached, "but I suppose it doesn't pay to jump to conclusions. The one thing that does seem clear is that whoever is sending the signal, they don't want to be found – they certainly don't seem to stay in any one place for longer than five minutes. You searched the site thoroughly, I take it."

"Yes, sir," Benton confirmed, relieved by the swift return to the business at hand. "We searched the premises and surrounding area, but the only evidence anyone had even been there was the corpse –"

"A human corpse, you say?" the Brigadier interjected.

"Yes, sir."

"And have we identified the man?"

"Not yet, sir. He wasn't carrying any ID. We might have to get on to the police to help establish his identity."

The Brigadier rolled his eyes. "Well, if you really must. I'd rather not involve them any more than strictly necessary, though – police are the last thing we need under our feet for this investigation."

"Yes, sir," Benton agreed. "Dr Sullivan is still examining the body to determine the exact cause of death, but believes he may have been shot with some kind of energy weapon."

The Brigadier perked up at once, predictably enough – it was only to be expected that he'd jump all over that little titbit, unconfirmed though it still was. It wasn't as if they had anything else to go on. "An energy weapon, eh? Well, if true, that would be a clear indication of extra-terrestrial involvement."

"It would, sir," Benton agreed again. "Dr Sullivan will confirm one way or another as soon as he's finished his examination. One other thing, sir. It rained earlier today, so the ground was muddy – we found tyre tracks that indicate a single vehicle entering the property and then leaving again at speed."

"The vehicle our victim was travelling in, I suppose," the Brigadier thoughtfully replied. "But if it left again without him, well, either our extra-terrestrials, if they exist, have learned how to drive – or someone else was there who saw what happened. I want to know who that person was, what they were doing there and what they know about a crashed alien spaceship, unexplained transmissions and a human corpse."

Not much to ask for, then, with little or no evidence to go on. Benton resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "I've ordered a full forensic examination, sir," he reported.

"Very well, Mr Benton." It was a dismissal. "Keep me informed."

 

**CI5CI5CI5**

"He's dead." Mr Cowley appeared around the door of his office just as Doyle was passing, almost as if he'd been lying in wait. He looked annoyed enough that he might well have been.

Doyle blinked. "Good morning to you, too, sir. Who's dead?"

"Clive Morley." Cowley jerked his head for Doyle to follow him into the office. Bodie was already there, and judging by the look on his face he'd already had an earful.

"Morley? Dead how?" Doyle asked, and fried under the glare his boss turned on him.

"If you two hadn't been incompetent enough to lose him, we might know how he died," Cowley snapped. "He might not have died."

"Well, he was alive and kicking last we saw of him, so –"

"When you lost him, you mean."

"So what did the police say?" Doyle continued, puzzled – when a person of interest turned up dead, the cause was usually straightforward enough even if the exact circumstances weren't.

The look on Cowley's face could have curdled milk. "The police have very little information to share. Clive Morley's death was reported by and is being investigated by the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce." He bit the words out as if they tasted rotten. They probably did.

"UNIT?" More confused than ever, Doyle looked to his partner for enlightenment of some kind, but Bodie simply shrugged and stayed out of it. "What have UNIT got to do with a lowlife like Morley?"

Cowley glowered at him in a way that could only be described as unfriendly. "Quite," he said. "That's what I'd like to know."

"Why were _we_ interested in Morley?" Bodie chipped in at last. It was his turn to fry beneath Cowley's glare, and he added a hasty, "Sir."

"Specifically," Doyle added. "I mean, why now? Why in particular?"

Cowley glared at them both a moment longer before relenting, at least a little. "Something in the wind, you might say," he mused. "Morley was a trusted associate of Eddie Stanton, and Stanton's brewing something. I don't know what – I had hoped Morley might lead us to a few answers, but now we're back to square one with a day wasted." He was looking decidedly unfriendly again as he snapped, "Describe Morley's movements to me, there may be something –"

"We did submit our report, sir," Bodie protested, although Doyle privately thought he was wasting his breath there.

"Never mind your report," Cowley growled. "I'm asking you to tell me, every detail."

"There's not a lot to tell," said Bodie. "We picked him up coming out of the club, tailed him round a few shops –"

"What shops?"

"Newsagent and bookies," Doyle replied. "He bought some fags and a paper and placed a few bets. Stone The Crows at 8/2 in the 1.30. He lost."

"Then we followed him home," Bodie continued. "He was in the house for about…thirty, thirty-five minutes?" He looked at Doyle for confirmation.

Doyle nodded. "Then he went out again and we followed…and that's when we lost him in traffic. Sorry, sir."

"And a few hours later he was reported dead by UNIT," Cowley mused. "No other details forthcoming. So what happened – where did he go, what did he do, how were UNIT involved? That's what we need to find out."

"Have they told us anything at all, sir?" Bodie asked. "I mean, accident, murder, suicide, anything to be going on with, so we know what we're dealing with – natural causes, even? Did he stumble into something of theirs by accident? Or are we treading on their…"

His voice tailed off as Cowley shot him a look that should have drilled holes clean through him. Cowley had clashed with UNIT over jurisdictional demarcation a number of times in the past and hadn't got his way even once, which was unusual for him. So if this investigation was somehow crossing wires with a UNIT operation – or, rather, if a UNIT operation was crossing wires with their investigation…well, that was going to get right up Cowley's nose. Which meant Cowley would be getting up Doyle and Bodie's noses until it was over.

"No information has been released so far," Cowley brusquely confirmed, "Other than the fact that Morley is dead. However, UNIT have agreed to let us talk to their medical officer, who examined the body. That might give us a place to start."

 

**UNITUNITUNIT**

"Here's that autopsy report on Clive Morley, sir," Benton announced as he entered the Brigadier's office with the file.

"Morley?" The Brigadier frowned slightly as he glanced up from the sheaf of papers strewn across his desk. "Oh yes. The body at the farm."

"That's the one, sir. He _was_ killed by an energy weapon of some kind, as Dr Sullivan suspected," Benton summarised.

"Which confirms that someone – or some _thing_ – definitely survived that crash, then," the Brigadier mused, leafing through the report.

"Yes, sir, so it would seem – it's alien technology, at any rate." Not necessarily wielded by aliens, of course, but it was certainly looking that way.

"And there's been no further trace of that signal?"

"I'm afraid not, sir."

"Which rather leaves us back at square one, doesn't it," the Brigadier sighed. "But now we know that there are aliens on the loose, somewhere."

"Yes, sir," Benton agreed. Aliens on the loose, aliens who were apparently prepared to kill, and they had no idea what they were or where to look for them. Life with UNIT was never dull; you could say that for it. "But we know that humans are involved somehow as well."

"A dead human would seem to indicate that, yes," said the Brigadier, rather more sarcastically than Benton felt was entirely called for. "Have we had the forensic report back on those tyre tracks yet?"

"Yes, sir. Inconclusive," Benton reluctantly admitted. Every potential lead they'd found so far had turned out to be a dead end. "We've taken eye witness reports from the locals describing at least half a dozen different vehicles that may or may not have been heading to or from Elderbrook Farm yesterday afternoon, we're still checking those out. And don't forget we've got those CI5 agents due shortly to see Dr Sullivan about Morley's death."

The Brigadier expressed his feelings about that by rolling his eyes. "Blasted nuisance," he grumbled. "Still, I suppose we must – with any luck they might at least be able to tell us what the man was doing there."

"Yes, sir. I suppose that –"

"Sir!" Corporal Carol Bell, the Brigadier's assistant, came charging into the room at a run. "We've picked up that signal again, fifteen miles west-north-west of the previous location."

The Brigadier was on his feet at once. "Well, don't just stand there, man," he snapped at Benton – rather unfairly, Benton thought, since he was already heading for the door. "Let's move."

 

**CI5CI5CI5**

"I mean, what do UNIT do, exactly?" Bodie mused as he eased the car through the early morning traffic toward UNIT HQ. "Do you know?"

Doyle shrugged. "No one knows, do they? Except…"

"Except for the people who need to know," Bodie finished for him with an exasperated sigh. It was the standard by-line for UNIT, the response from on high that greeted every enquiry on the subject, no matter who that enquiry came from. "And I thought our business was hush-hush. I mean, even Cowley doesn't have security clearance on their operations. And he's got clearance on everything."

"They've been involved in some big stuff, though, haven't they?" Doyle had his thinking face on. "I mean, there was that flap over that weapons research centre – what was it called? Think Tank – it was UNIT dealt with that, wasn't it? And then again at that energy conference a while back. That was them, too."

"Yeah, I shouldn't remind Cowley about that one," Bodie told him. "Any of them, come to that – he still reckons they should have been ours."

"Yeah, but what actually happened?"

"Well, no one knows, do they?" Bodie obliged his partner by answering the rhetorical question. "Classified to the nth degree."

"So what makes us think they're going to tell us anything this time?"

"Well, they probably won't, will they?" Bodie shared a rueful eye-roll with Doyle. This trip was going to be a complete waste of time and they both knew it. "We still have to ask the questions, though, don't we – where else are we going to start?"

 

**UNITCI5UNIT**

"What exactly is CI5's interest in the deceased, if you don't mind my asking?"

Dr Harry Sullivan RN, UNIT's medical officer, was younger than Doyle had expected – early 30s at the most. Immaculately turned out in Naval uniform, he spoke with the clipped tones of a public schoolboy, while his manner was polite, affable…and guarded. He'd been given the job of fobbing them off, Doyle guessed, and didn't seem entirely comfortable with it, but was going to follow orders and stone-wall them anyway. Well, two could play at that game. "We had hoped he might have information pertinent to an ongoing investigation," he said. Nice and vague and formal. "But he disappeared before we had the chance to talk to him."

"What was UNIT's interest in the deceased?" Bodie pointedly added.

Sullivan shrugged. "We had none," he said. "Until his body was discovered during the course of a UNIT operation."

"Don't suppose you'd like to tell us what kind of operation?" Bodie enquired, glancing at Doyle with a meaningful little eye roll; they both knew what the answer to that would be.

"That's classified, I'm afraid," Sullivan replied, predictably enough.

"How did he die?" Doyle asked.

"He was shot." Well, that was a straightforward enough answer, at least.

"By UNIT?" Bodie immediately asked.

Sullivan shook his head. "By a third party. He was already dead when we found him."

"So UNIT's interest was in the third party, then?" Doyle guessed, mulling over the implications. "Can we ask who that was? Might be relevant to our investigation."

"Also classified, I'm afraid." He did actually look as if he regretted not being able to answer the question, as well.

Doyle rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I thought it might be. Was the killer apprehended at the scene, can we at least ask that?"

Sullivan hesitated slightly before replying – probably weighing up whether or not that information fell under the heading of 'classified' as well. "No. No, they were gone by the time we got there."

"So, you lost yours and we lost ours," Bodie wryly remarked. "And since clearly none of us are prepared to tell each other anything, we're not likely to work out what the connection is anytime soon, are we?"

"Where was Morley found?" Doyle asked. "Or is that classified, too?"

Again Sullivan considered the question for a moment before replying, leaning slightly against a table to regard them both appraisingly and shoving his hands into his pockets as he did so – a gesture that completely spoiled the crisp, upright military bearing he'd been sporting up till then, but Doyle found he liked him a little bit better for it, even if his commanding officer probably wouldn't. "The body was found on derelict farmland just outside London," he said at last. "He had no known connection to the area that we've been able to establish – but you might know more about that than us."

"We'd be interested in seeing the location, then," said Doyle. It was worth asking – he'd been slightly more cooperative than expected, so far. "Might help us piece together Morley's movements in his last hours."

"Yeah, and that would help your investigation as well as ours, wouldn't it?" Bodie added. "Find out if he was there by coincidence or design, so to speak."

Sullivan looked dubious.

"Look, at least run it past your guv'nor," Doyle suggested. "Never know, he might say yes."

"He's out on manoeuvres," Sullivan rather vaguely replied. That was odd. What kind of manoeuvres might they be on, middle of a case like this? Doyle had thought the place seemed strangely empty as they came in. If almost the whole of UNIT HQ had cleared out on these 'manoeuvres', what did that imply?

Sullivan was still looking thoughtful – trying to decide whether or not he was authorised to agree to their request, no doubt, if there was no superior officer around to refer it to. If he said yes, it would mean he knew damn well that all evidence of anything 'classified' had already been removed from the scene, that much was certain, so the chances of actually learning anything useful from a site visit were remote – but a long shot was better than nothing. It wasn't as if they had anything else to go on.

At length, Sullivan nodded. "Right-o, then. I'll take you there."

 

**CI5UNITCI5**

"I say, where's the guard?" Lieutenant Sullivan asked, wearing a baffled frown. It was the first indication that this supposedly routine investigative visit to the derelict farm where Clive Morley's body had been found wasn't going to be quite as straightforward as anticipated.

Bodie snapped to alert at once, and a quick glance in Doyle's direction told him that his partner had reacted likewise. "UNIT left a soldier here?" he checked as they exited the car, eyes scouring every inch of the property he could see. It made sense to leave a man on guard detail, if UNIT wanted to protect the location and see if anyone returned to the scene of the crime, but Sullivan was right: there was no sign of him.

Sullivan nodded. "Look, there's the Land Rover. But no sign of the guard." He glanced around worriedly.

Doyle caught Bodie's eye, shrugged eloquently, and then said, "Could be patrolling the perimeter – or gone off to take a leak, or something."

"Maybe." Still frowning, Sullivan wandered over to the abandoned vehicle, as if to check that the missing soldier wasn't hiding inside.

Bodie looked at Doyle, who quietly asked, "What do you think?"

"I think he knows more than he's letting on."

"He's UNIT. Of course he knows more than he's letting on. Seems genuine about that missing guard, though."

Bodie nodded. The missing guard might still turn up – the farm wasn't small, plenty of land to get lost on – but wasn't a good sign. "Well, we'll see what turns up when we start poking around," he remarked, then turned to Sullivan as he returned from his fruitless examination of the Land Rover. "Where was Morley's body found?"

"Over there –" As Sullivan half-turned to point, a loud bang, like the slamming of a door somewhere, broke the stillness of the air, and he span around in the other direction looking alarmed. The noise had come from the direction of an outhouse, over near what had probably once been stables, a little way apart from the main farmhouse.

"The farm is abandoned, you said?" Bodie quickly checked with Sullivan, who nodded.

"Been derelict for years, according to the agent. Our men searched the property thoroughly. No sign of occupation."

"Could be your missing soldier," Doyle suggested, but the quick sideways glance he tossed in Bodie's direction said he wasn't convinced by that theory, any more than Bodie was.

"Or maybe the killer came back," Bodie dourly added, and watched Sullivan's worried face closely to see how he reacted to that suggestion. The anxious frown intensified – he looked as if he was deeply regretting agreeing to bring them here. Bodie couldn't honestly blame him for that. The identity of Morley's killer was highly classified, after all, presumably for a reason. And they were very exposed, out here in the open.

They approached the outhouse with extreme caution. A look and a couple of quick hand gestures were all it took to agree a course of action with Doyle, who headed for the door with Sullivan in tow while Bodie skirted around the outside in search of a back door, other possible means of exit, or any other signs of life – weapon in hand, just in case.

He'd just rounded a corner and noted the existence of a rear exit to the building – which meant the door slam could as easily have been someone exiting as entering, unseen from their previous position – when what looked like a bolt of lightning, a virtually _horizontal_ bolt of lightning, from somewhere down low rather than the sky, came streaking out of nowhere and struck the wall just above his head. He flung himself to one side to escape the shower of bricks and mortar and then scrambled for cover, frantically scanning the surrounding terrain in search of the source of the lightning, because that wasn't natural, that couldn't be natural.

Another lightning bolt that took out the low wall he'd taken cover behind, sending him scurrying, confirmed beyond any shadow of doubt that it wasn't natural. It was aimed and deliberate. But what was it? Some kind of laser?

Bodie sprinted back behind the building, stumbling slightly over fallen bricks strewn across the loose gravel, blood pounding in his ears as he narrowly avoided a few more pot shots aimed in his direction, which exploded into the wall of the outhouse. He dived for cover, brambles scratching his skin and catching at his clothes as he fell, and then waited, poised ready to run again.

No more lightning bolts.

He allowed himself a moment to catch his breath, the sour aftertaste of adrenaline bitter at the back of his throat. Still no more lightning bolts. He risked a quick peek. No sign of movement. No sign of any more lightning. Whoever'd been shooting at him didn't seem to be pursuing, now he was out of sight.

Satisfied that he was no longer in immediate danger, Bodie turned to look at the outhouse that Doyle and Sullivan had entered just a few minutes earlier and felt the acid churn of renewed panic, deep in his gut. The building had taken several hits of those lightning bolts. It hadn't been in good repair to begin with, and now…the side wall had collapsed, bringing most of the roof down with it – and there was no sign of life.

 

**UNITCI5UNIT**

"Easy now, take it easy," said a voice somewhere close by. Not Bodie.

A groan escaped, unbidden, as Doyle attempted to peel his eyes open, before the blinding pain that shot through his already pounding head made him think better of it. He let them flutter shut again and lay still for a moment, took stock instead, and felt minor aches and pains beginning to make themselves known all over, although the head was the worst. The air was thick with dust, coating his airways with every breath, cloying, and he was lying on an irregular surface, sharp edges digging in uncomfortably here and there. His face felt sticky – and then something soft suddenly pressed against it, just above one eye, startling him. He managed to peel his eyes open at the second attempt and looked straight into the worried face of UNIT's Dr Harry Sullivan, who looked every bit as battered as Doyle felt.

"Wha' 'ppened?" The question, more a reflex than anything, came out as a woozy slur followed by a hacking cough to clear some of that dust off his lungs and throat.

"You don't remember?" Sullivan frowned.

A look like that on the face of a medical professional could result in extreme boredom of the laid up variety if you weren't careful. Doyle redoubled his efforts to collect his scattered memories of recent events. "Th' roof fell," he eventually came up with, shifting uncomfortably.

"Something like that. Hold this here a moment." Sullivan took one of Doyle's hands and placed it over that soft something that was still pressed against his face. Doyle pulled it away to look at it: a handkerchief, with blood on it. Sullivan promptly guided both hand and handkerchief back to their previous position. "You need to hold that there for a moment, old chap," he repeated. "Can you tell me your name?"

The concussion check-list was a familiar enough drill. "Ray Doyle."

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

Doyle blinked at the blurry digits, which refused to come into focus. "Two," he offered. It was a guess.

Sullivan patted his shoulder, a gesture of reassurance that Doyle fuzzily suspected he should find patronising. "Close," he said. "Sit tight a moment while I see if I can find the door."

He disappeared from Doyle's field of vision, which reminded Doyle of something else that was missing. "Where's Bodie?"

"Still outside, I should imagine," Sullivan's voice called back from somewhere out of eyeshot, "Wondering if we're all right."

Bodie'd stayed outside; they'd come inside – searching this derelict farm where Clive Morley's body had been found. And then there'd been some kind of explosion and the roof had caved in…. It all came back in a rush and Doyle started upright – and his stomach rolled, protesting the sudden movement.

There was a scramble and a clatter nearby, and then Sullivan was at his side again, easing him through the wave of nausea. "Try not to move just yet. You've had a nasty crack on the head," the doctor advised.

It was probably good advice, except that they were trapped in this building, which had collapsed on top of them, and Bodie would be going frantic outside trying to dig his way in to them, and there was something strange going on here. He couldn't afford to just lie around nursing a bumped head. Doyle stubbornly shook his head, which was a mistake, a definite mistake, the flash of pain that shot through it was white-hot, but he tried again to sit up anyway. Sullivan helped this time. The room span around him as he moved, dizzying and disorienting, and his stomach lurched in protest, but he eventually made it to a more or less upright position, leaning against the remains of an interior wall.

Sullivan kept a firm hold of his shoulders until the nausea passed and his breathing settled down again. "Better?" he asked at length.

Doyle managed a terse little nod and looked around. From his new position he could see the state the building was in – fallen masonry everywhere, a few tiny fires smouldering here and there – and was mildly impressed that they'd both managed to survive the collapse. "D' you find the door?" he asked.

"Not yet." Sullivan gave him another long, hard look, and was apparently satisfied with what he saw as he then stood up and scrambled away over the rubble once more, toward the spot where the door was obscured behind fallen beams and brickwork.

He was moving gingerly, Doyle noticed, and favouring one arm. "Are you all right?" he belatedly thought to ask.

Half-turning to glance back across the debris he was attempting to negotiate, Sullivan offered him a wan little smile that wasn't as reassuring as he probably intended it to be. "Bruised, nothing broken," he said, scrubbing a hand through his hair as he turned once more to survey the debris blocking the exit. He attempted to shift some of it and got a face full of thick black dust for his trouble, stumbled away coughing and spluttering.

Time to stand up and start helping, Doyle told himself, and started to struggle to his feet. Sullivan hurried back to him at once, still coughing. "I'm okay," Doyle insisted, wobbly but upright.

"I'll be the judge of that," Sullivan countered. Typical doctor: always thought they knew best. He held up a finger – definitely only one this time – and told Doyle to follow it. Doyle obliged him by tracking the movement of the finger with his eyes, up and down, left and right, by way of proof that he could now see straight once more.

"Right, let's see about that door, then," he said, as firmly as he could manage, and began to cautiously navigate the unstable heaps of rubble, only slightly aided by Sullivan – although now that they were both more or less mobile, he wasn't entirely sure that the other man was that much steadier than he was. The building had collapsed on them both, after all.

Between them, with a lot of wobbling and wheezing, they managed to shift a bit of the rubble without bringing too much more down on their heads. Sound from the outside world began to filter through – muffled shouting and banging and cursing, which told Doyle clearly that his partner was likewise digging in the other direction. He yelled back and redoubled his efforts. Slowly, digging from both sides, they managed to clear a hole through which Bodie became visible, looking grimy and relieved. Head pounding and ears ringing, Doyle attempted to muster up a smile for his benefit. "What kept you?"

 

**CI5UNITCI5**

"What the hell is going on here? I thought you said the place was abandoned?" Bodie rounded on Sullivan the moment the three of them had made it safely out of the collapsed outhouse and retreated behind the relative shelter of a nearby barn.

"It was. It was searched, top to bottom." He'd dropped to the ground, looking battered and bruised, and was rubbing at his shoulder with a pained expression.

Doyle looked even worse. He'd also flopped to the ground in a heap and Bodie knelt alongside him to take a look at a bloody gash over his eye; it looked nasty, but was already scabbing over. "Is he all right?" he demanded of Sullivan, who nodded.

"Slightly concussed."

"I'm fine," Doyle growled, pushing him away. "But I'd like to know what happened. Why'd the building collapse like that?"

"Someone was shooting at us," Bodie grimly told his partner, who frowned at him in incomprehension.

"Shooting doesn't knock a house down, Bodie."

"It does when it's lightning that's being fired!" Bodie retorted with feeling.

Doyle looked bewildered. "What? I thought I was supposed to be the one with concussion."

"I've never seen anything like it, Ray," Bodie admitted. "I don't know what it was – some kind of laser, maybe? All I know is it looked like a lightning strike but wasn't, it was focused and aimed, a weapon – powerful enough to knock a house down."

"It was an energy weapon." This came quietly but decisively from Sullivan.

Bodie fixed him with a long, hard glare. "A what?" He'd known the man was withholding information, expected it – it was his job, after all, to keep UNIT's secrets – but didn't like it any the better for that. Especially when it landed a building on his partner's head. The fact that the building had also landed on Sullivan's own head was neither here nor there.

"An energy weapon," Sullivan wearily repeated, scrubbing a hand through his thick curly hair to dislodge the worst of the brick fragments and dust that were caught in it. "The same weapon that killed Clive Morley, at a guess."

"You said Morley was shot," said Doyle, dabbing at his bloody forehead with a grimy hand.

"He was. He was shot with an energy weapon of some kind. It seems reasonable to assume it was the same thing we just experienced."

Bodie shook his head, angry and confused. Nothing that had happened since they arrived here had made any sense at all. "No, I know weapons, believe me, and I've never seen anything like that before," he argued.

Sullivan looked tired. "No," he said. "No, you wouldn't have."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Is it a new weapon?" Doyle asked, frowning. "Still in development, something UNIT was responsible for? Is that it?"

"And now it's fallen into the wrong hands?" Bodie added, suspecting his partner may be on to something there.

Sullivan shook his head and said no, but Bodie wasn't convinced. Neither was Doyle, apparently. "Stanton's had links with arms dealing, hasn't he?" he mused, turning to Bodie.

Sullivan looked interested. "Who's Stanton?"

"An associate of Clive Morley," said Bodie, watching his reaction closely through narrowed eyes. "Are we right? Has some experimental weapon been mislaid, maybe picked up by Stanton's mob? Come on, be straight – we're way past worrying about what's classified and what's not, here."

Sullivan shook his head again. "Believe it or not, gentlemen, I actually wish it were that simple," he sighed. "Although I suppose it's possible the arms trade link might help explain Morley's involvement. Somehow." The way he was frowning suggested he still wasn't sure how the pieces fitted together, though – although he did at least have more of those pieces to be going on with than Bodie and Doyle did, and remained frustratingly reluctant to share everything he knew with them. He glanced around anxiously. "Look, do you think we could make it back to the vehicles? I need to call this in to HQ, ask for backup. The Brigadier should be back by now."

The UNIT Land Rover and Bodie's car were both within sight of their position, and the idea of backup – even UNIT backup – was very attractive just now. Cowley'd be wondering where they were, as well, come to that.

"Ambulance for the pair of you wouldn't go amiss, either," Bodie muttered, eyeing the cuts and bruises both were sporting. While Doyle and Sullivan in unison insisted that they were fine, he tried to gauge the distance they'd have to cover…but then shook his head. "Open ground, not enough cover – and we don't know the range of that weapon. I'm not sure I'd want to risk it, not without knowing more."

"We can't just sit here all day, though, can we," Doyle countered. "If there's someone out there with this new gun, what's to stop them coming looking for us? They know we're here, don't they?"

They did – they'd definitely seen Bodie, if not the other two – and just because they hadn't come looking yet didn't mean they weren't going to.

"Wait, is that…? Oh, I say." Sullivan was now looking in the other direction entirely, an expression of dismay on his face.

"What?" Bodie turned to see what he was looking at. At first all he could see was more derelict farmland, but then…there it was: a body, half hidden by the overgrown weeds it had fallen among. The missing guard, presumably. Definitely dead, Bodie could tell that much even from this distance, but the doctor seemed to feel the need to check for himself, up close and personal. He unexpectedly broke from cover and scampered across the open yard toward the body, ignoring Bodie's shout of protest. At least he had the sense to keep low.

No lightning strikes ensued. Maybe whoever had the weapon hadn't seen him. Either that or he was out of range – which would mean they might be safe to make a run for the vehicles, after all. It was still an idiot move, breaking cover like that.

Exasperated, Bodie turned to Doyle, who shrugged. "He's a medical officer, isn't he," he mildly observed. "Not a field agent."

"Well, non-field agents should stay out of the field, then, shouldn't they," Bodie snapped.

 

**UNITCI5UNIT**

The charring of Corporal Parker's body was unmistakeable: definitely the same weapon that had killed Clive Morley.

Completing his cursory examination of the body, Harry Sullivan sat back on his haunches, trying to decide what on Earth he should do now. His orders had seemed simple enough when the Brigadier relayed them this morning: talk to the visiting CI5 agents and try to find out why a man they'd been investigating had ended up out here on this farm, shot dead by a group of stranded and very elusive aliens…but without revealing the existence of said aliens.

Avoiding that revelation was growing harder by the minute, circumstances being what they were. Maybe bringing the agents out here to the farm had been a mistake, but it had seemed safe enough when they asked to see the location; the area had been searched thoroughly, after all, and then the aliens' mysterious transmission – presumed to be some kind of distress signal or homing beacon – had shown up miles away, seeming to confirm that they'd abandoned this site. If they'd ever been here longer than it took to pass through, that was, for which there was no evidence either way.

Hindsight suggested that perhaps a place that had already been searched might be considered the safest place to hide. It was too late to worry about that now, though, spilt milk, and all that.

"Are you satisfied now?" Bodie appeared at his side, gun in hand, looking irate. "He's dead, nothing you can do for him – get back behind cover."

He was right. Harry straightened up, rather stiffly as fresh bruises protested…and then froze as he caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye.

"What?" Bodie had noticed his reaction and was instantly alert.

It was an alien, standing at the entrance to a nearby stable block, staring back at them in what, loath though Harry was to project human emotions onto alien features, looked remarkably like alarm. It was humanoid, but there the similarity with mankind ended – it resembled nothing so much as a bipedal fox or weasel, in fact, with its sharp, pointed furry face and enormous ears.

So much for keeping the aliens secret. A sharp intake of breath alongside him told Harry that Bodie had also seen the creature.

For a frozen moment all was still, and then an awful lot seemed to happen all at once. Bodie gasped, "What the hell is that," his gun arm automatically rising to shooting position, while simultaneously across the yard Harry heard the alien shout "they're here, they're armed, we're seen," raising a gun of its own, while a second alien came running, also armed and bringing its weapon to bear on them…

"Don't shoot, don't shoot!" His reaction was gut instinct, pushing Bodie's gun arm down and ignoring his indignant protest, because a handgun against a weapon that had brought a building down struck him as little more than a really quick way to commit suicide, while holding up his own empty hand to the aliens in a placatory gesture. "Don't shoot," he called for good measure across the yard to Doyle, who'd taken a few steps around the side of the barn to see what was going on.

For another frozen moment, all Harry could hear was the pounding of his own heart. It wasn't the first time he'd encountered aliens and it wasn't even the first time he'd found himself in the hot seat, as it were, right on the front line with no one better qualified anywhere in the offing to take the lead, but he wasn't sure that experience would help him here. At least no one had fired yet. He tried to keep his body between Bodie and the aliens, all of whom had lowered their weapons slightly but remained tense, fingers on triggers, ready to start firing at any moment.

"Don't shoot," he called to the aliens again. "We're not going to hurt you. Let's all try to stay calm, eh. Just…lower your weapons. Please."

"What the hell are they?" Bodie hissed at him, eyes flashing with fury.

A few explanations were definitely in order, now that the cat was so well and truly out of the bag, but now was not the time.

"Have you come to make more demands, human?" one of the aliens snarled through a mouthful of needle-sharp teeth. "Our answer has not changed!"

Harry didn't like the sound of that. "What demands?"

"What?" Bodie snapped.

"We told those before, we tell you now: we will give nothing to you," the alien growled. "If our crewman is not returned, then we will retake him by force, if we have to shoot every human in this land!" It raised its gun once more as it spoke, as if to illustrate its point, and Bodie reacted by raising his gun, too. Harry pushed it away again.

"Don't shoot," he repeated, putting as much authority into his voice as he could muster. "No one needs to shoot anyone."

"They shot at us before," Bodie furiously retorted.

"Well then, let's not give them an excuse to cut us down now," Harry urgently argued. "You've seen what those weapons of theirs can do – do you really think yours is any match for them?" He turned to face the aliens again, called out, "Why don't you tell us about your missing crewman, what happened to him?"

"Who's missing? What are you talking about?" Bodie growled into his ear from just behind his shoulder.

"You know what happened," the alien snarled.

"I don't," Harry assured him. "Whoever you encountered before, that wasn't us. Tell us what happened. Perhaps we can help."

"Help? Help who, why? Sullivan!" Bodie pulled at his shoulder – the sore one, of course – and glared at him. "What's going on? What are you talking about?"

Harry might not be the first to admit that he could be a little slow on the uptake at times, but it was something he was aware of; he'd certainly been told often enough. Staring into the confused, angry face of the CI5 agent, it gradually dawned on him that there was some kind of communication deficit going on here.

"You don't understand them."

"Understand what? That creature? It's not speaking English!" Bodie was almost incandescent with rage and confusion. "What the hell is it?"

The alien seemed to be thinking along much the same lines. "How do you communicate with us?" it called across in tones of deep suspicion. "You have no translation device."

Harry was, frankly, flabbergasted – and wasn't quite sure how he could even begin to explain. It was something that he hadn't realised until this moment that he'd come to take for granted, being able to communicate with aliens. He was aware, though, that it had come about as a result of that fateful day he'd agreed to set foot in the Doctor's TARDIS and ended up taking a whirlwind tour through time and space. He had a vague idea that the Doctor had once explained it as a kind of translation matrix installed by the TARDIS in the heads of anyone who travelled in her, although how that allowed aliens to likewise understand him was another matter entirely and something he'd never understood – or even questioned. Ridiculous though such blind acceptance seemed, now that he came to think about it, he'd never really given it any thought. He hadn't even, really, realised that it was an ability he still had, now that he was back on Earth; until now he hadn't encountered any aliens since his return.

He looked back and fore between Bodie and the aliens – and Doyle, who was cautiously edging closer – and shrugged helplessly. "I'm not sure that would be terribly easy to explain," he stammered. It also wasn't the point. "Look, I know you're stranded," he called to the aliens. "If we all put down our guns and talk, we might be able to sort something out."

"What?" Bodie snapped. "Are you mad?"

Harry was prepared, at this point, to concede that he might well be. Times like this he found he rather missed the Doctor, who was a useful sort of chap to have around in these situations. Still, the Doctor wasn't here, Harry was, and he was anxious not to see this devolve into a bloodbath.

"Our mothership is on its way," the alien shouted. "If our crewman is not returned before it arrives, we will lay waste to this land!"

Crikey, this really was going to turn into a bloodbath if they weren't careful. "There's no need for that," Harry hastily replied, anxiety levels rising rapidly.

"No need for what?" Bodie demanded. Harry ignored him, for now – the threats the aliens were making had to take priority.

"Look, I'm a doctor; my colleagues here are officers of the law. If you tell us what happened, I promise we'll do everything in our power to find your missing crewman."

"Find who?" Bodie fiercely asked, then turned to a wide-eyed Doyle, who'd sidled very cautiously up to them, gun holstered and empty hands held up in a suitably non-threatening gesture; he'd evidently not wanted to spook the aliens and get shot in transit. "Are you getting this?"

Doyle stared at the aliens. "Are those costumes – _really good_ costumes – or are they what I think they are?"

"They're not human, are they?" Bodie shook his head and snorted in disbelief. "God. Is this for real?" He seemed a little calmer now, but that simply meant the culture shock was setting in; Harry remembered only too well how it felt, the disorientation of discovering that the universe was so much bigger than you'd ever dreamed.

Doyle huffed a wry little chuckle that was just this side of hysteria. "I had a knock on the head, mate. What's your excuse?" To Harry he asked, "What are they saying?"

"That one of their crewmen is missing, possibly abducted," Harry quickly related. "And it seems someone has been making some kind of demands – your man Morley's associates, perhaps. They seem quite riled up about it."

"Enough of this," the more belligerent of the aliens shouted. It raised its gun and gestured at Harry with it. "You wish to talk? Then you will come to us and talk, away from those others."

Oh. Harry's heart sank. He hadn't bargained on a suggestion like that. Except that a suggestion made at gunpoint wasn't really a suggestion, was it?

"What is it?" Doyle asked. "What did it say?"

"They want me to go over there and talk to them privately."

"What?" Doyle looked alarmed.

"No, no way." Bodie moved to physically insert himself between Harry and the aliens, who bristled angrily. "You are not handing yourself over to those things."

Harry didn't much like the thought of it himself, but was trying very hard not to panic because, looking again at the aliens and those deadly weapons they were brandishing, he knew that their options were severely limited here. "I'm not sure we have much choice in the matter."

"You go over there and we've got an instant hostage situation on our hands," Bodie argued, still standing in his way. "They've already killed two men, at least."

"That we know of," Doyle added.

"I haven't forgotten." Harry had met Corporal Parker's wife; someone was going to have to tell her that he was dead. But they were already prisoners, in effect, standing here in the open with those weapons trained on them. And there was more at stake than just their three lives. "Look, they say they've a ship on the way to collect them – if their crewman is still missing when it arrives, this could get a whole lot worse than it already is," he urgently explained. "Those things they're waving are just handguns – can you imagine what all-out war would be like against the heavy artillery that goes with them? But if I talk to them, find out more, maybe we can still resolve this peacefully."

"Do you want to talk?" the alien shouted. "Or should we shoot you all where you stand?"

"Don't shoot," Harry hastily called. "I'll come. I'm coming."

"I don't like it," Doyle argued.

"Neither do I," admitted Harry. "But I can communicate with them. You can't."

Bodie narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Yes and how is that, exactly?" he asked.

Harry sighed. "I will explain…" Well, it might not be as easy as all that. "I will _try_ to explain everything. Later. But I'm going to have to talk to them first. I'm sorry."

With that, he stepped around Bodie and walked over to the aliens.

 

**UNITUNITUNIT**

"…and make sure they don't come back until they've got some news for me," the Brigadier snapped as he strode back into UNIT HQ, issuing brusque commands as he walked. "I don't care what it takes – they're to go over that whole area with a fine tooth comb. _Something_ was sending that transmission and I want it found, whatever it is."

"Yes, sir," Benton agreed, following close at his shoulder.

"We've lost too much time on this as it is." It had been three days now. Three days of false starts and no positive developments. He was starting to seriously consider using that space-time telegraph again to get the Doctor back here to help solve the mystery…but no. No. He'd resented being summoned last time so much that he might not even show up this time, capricious as he'd always been, and this could hardly be described as the kind of world in peril situation he'd left the device for, not yet, at any rate. No, the Doctor was gone. They were going to have to solve this one on their own.

"Yes, sir," Benton agreed again. "I'll see what I can do to chivvy them along."

"Sir John Sudbury has been on the phone for you, sir," Corporal Bell announced as the Brigadier paused before her desk in the ante-room outside his office, tucking his swagger stick under his arm. "He'd like you to call him back with an update."

"There's nothing to update," he grumbled. "Complete wild goose chase. Again. Anything else?"

"Yes, sir." Bell looked rather worried. "Lieutenant Sullivan took the CI5 agents out to see the farm where that body was found."

The Brigadier nodded. "Yes, we're trying to establish if there was any link between the dead man and our elusive alien visitors." That corpse was the only lead they had, so far, other than those wretched abortive signals that kept showing up and then winking out again, leaving no trace of what had sent them. Whatever had come down in that crashed alien vessel, it was certainly stealthy. It had been wandering around the countryside for three days now without leaving a trace of its movements, not a single reported sighting.

"Yes, sir," said Bell. "Only they left quite some time ago now and they've not returned; there's been no contact. And Corporal Parker hasn't checked in either."

The Brigadier frowned at that, various possible scenarios suggesting themselves at once, none of which were good. Parker and Sullivan were good men, it would be a damned shame to lose either of them – and the last thing he wanted was to have to inform CI5 if something had happened to their agents. "Mr Benton," he instructed, turning to the sergeant-major. "Take a team out there and find out what's going on."

 

**CI5CI5CI5**

"Well, I'm not going to be the one to say the word," said Doyle, shifting position to avoid something scratchy that was possibly a thistle. The ground was still slightly damp from yesterday's rain, but they'd sat down on it anyway to wait for whatever might happen next, a few feet from the body of the UNIT guard, still sprawled nearby among the weeds as a reminder of what was at stake here: lives. Their lives and who knew how many more, potentially. Just now, though, it had all gone very quiet, since Sullivan had disappeared into the old stable block with those…creatures.

"Aliens," said Bodie, his tone flatter than flat. "That's what we're talking about. Right?"

Spoken out loud like that, it sounded ridiculous. It was ridiculous. Doyle snorted his disbelief of how this day was turning out and shook his head in mute denial of what they'd seen. Except that one of the creatures was still lurking at the entrance to the tumbledown stable block, gun in hand, its existence impossible to deny.

"Remember this morning, when Cowley was chewing us out over Morley giving us the slip?" he ruefully remarked. It seemed like a lifetime ago. The whole world had been turned on its head since then.

"Yeah. Good times," Bodie sighed.

"Simpler times," Doyle morosely reflected. He couldn't bring himself to think about the enormity of what they'd encountered, what it meant – his mind reeled every time he tried and he was having a hard enough time thinking straight as it was. Better to stay focused on the immediate situation, here and now. "How long has it been?"

Bodie glanced at his watch. "Six minutes."

It felt longer.

"How's the head?" Bodie eyed him appraisingly.

"Still attached." He felt a bit foggy, still, if he was honest, but that was nothing new, nothing to write home about, and at least the headache had died down to a dull throb now. Could be worse.

Bodie kept glancing over toward the vehicles. "If we could make it to the car…" he mused.

Doyle shook his head, felt that dull throb sharpen to a stab as a warning not to move too violently just yet. "With Mr Sunshine over there watching our every move? No chance. Besides, even if we made it, they've still got Sullivan in there, haven't they? I don't fancy explaining to UNIT why we ran away and left their medical officer behind with a bunch of trigger-happy..." it was no good, he was going to have to say the word, "aliens."

"Like I said: instant hostage situation," Bodie growled. "And we let it happen."

"Well, yeah, but it was already a hostage situation, wasn't it," Doyle pointed out. "They had us outgunned." Still did, come to that. It was unsettling, just sitting here while that thing lurked nearby with its weapon on display, waiting for someone else to resolve the situation – or not, as the case might be. That wasn't how they usually operated, not if they could help it. But this wasn't a CI5 job, that much was now crystal clear. They were way out of their depth on this. "Tell you what, though," he added. "He wasn't surprised, was he? About the aliens. He wasn't expecting them to be here, but he knew they were out there."

The look on Bodie's face suggested that he'd been thinking along much the same lines. "Explains a lot, doesn't it? All those crackpot stories about UNIT and UFOs…"

"Turn out to be God's own truth," Doyle finished for him with a sigh. Who'd ever have believed it? He certainly wouldn't have, as little as an hour ago.

Bodie rolled his eyes. "No wonder everything they do gets 'top secret' stamped all over it."

"And that's another thing," Doyle realised. "We're on the other side of that line, now, aren't we – the other side of the classification." He thought about the implications of that for a moment and shuddered. "Cowley," he declared, "Is going to skin us alive."

"I think I'd rather face the aliens," Bodie snorted.

 

**UNITCI5UNIT**

"Help me with Corporal Parker, please," was the first thing Sullivan said when he came dashing back at a jog. The change of pace was sudden and startling after the stillness that had followed his departure into the stable block with the aliens.

Bodie was at alert and on his feet at once, while Doyle, slightly slower to start moving, voiced the obvious question: "What's happening?"

Sullivan was already pulling at the corpse of the UNIT guard. "They're letting us go, but there isn't much time," he anxiously replied. "Help me, please. I don't want to leave him here."

Under normal circumstances, the body should be left where it was until a forensic team had been out to give the scene the once over. These weren't normal circumstances. Bodie helped him lift the body and carry it toward the Land Rover, keeping a sharp eye out for the alien creatures, reluctant to let them out of his sight, not trusting them not to start shooting again. They were still lurking over by the stables, watching with weapons in hand: the two they'd seen before and a third, who must have been inside the whole time. He'd seen a lot, in his time, things most men wouldn't dream of, but nothing like this, nothing remotely like those creatures. It sent a shiver down his spine, knowing they were behind him where he could no longer see as his path veered toward the vehicles.

As they moved, Sullivan talked, as he'd promised he would: fast and urgent. "A few days ago," he began, "a small spacecraft crashed to Earth, a few miles from here."

"Hey, I saw that on the news," Doyle interjected. "They said it was a meteorite."

"It was a spacecraft," said Sullivan. "UNIT investigated, but found no trace of any occupants. There was no way of telling if they'd survived the crash and gone to ground someplace – or bailed out somewhere up there in space, before the vessel came down."

He sounded completely matter of fact about it, as if crashed alien spaceships were the most normal thing in the world. Maybe for UNIT they were.

"These are not your first aliens, are they?" Bodie wryly observed, adjusting his grip on the corpse before it could slip out of his hands. The dead lad was heavier than he looked.

"No," Sullivan ruefully confirmed. "No, these are not my first aliens."

"But where does Morley come into it? And this farm?" Doyle asked, hurrying slightly ahead to open the rear door of the UNIT Land Rover for them. "This wasn't the crash site, you said."

Sullivan shook his head. "No, that was because of the signal, you see."

Bodie didn't see. "Signal?"

"Yes, well, you see, we're not entirely sure what it is – some kind of distress call or homing signal, perhaps," Sullivan rather vaguely explained as they began to manhandle the cold, stiff corpse into the back of the vehicle. It was easier said than done. "But we couldn't be entirely sure it was even connected, although it seemed likely. It's been picked up a few times now, always from a different location, but there's never been anything there when we get a team out to investigate. Or anyone, for that matter – they seem to have kept very much on the move. Obviously didn't want to be found."

Bodie took a moment to sort through this rather muddled account. "And this was one of those locations?"

"Yes. The only difference between this site and the others –"

"Was Clive Morley," Bodie finished for him. It was all starting to make a certain amount of sense, in an unreal kind of way.

"That's right." Sullivan pulled a tarp over the corpse. "And since he was definitely killed by an alien weapon, well, that was a clear indication that something did come down with the ship and survived the crash, and…well: now we've seen them, now we know."

Bodie slammed the Land Rover's rear door shut. "So what did they say?" he asked.

"That we don't have much time." Sullivan looked worriedly over toward the creatures, which were still clustered near the stables, brandishing their weapons. "Look, we should go – I'll explain the rest when we get back to HQ."

"UNIT HQ, you mean?"

"Yes." Sullivan raised an eyebrow, quizzical. "You're not going to deny that this is a UNIT case?"

Bodie pictured Cowley's face if they tried to explain to him what they'd seen today. It was a thought more horrible than the aliens. "No, this is a UNIT job, all right," he reluctantly conceded, glancing at Doyle, who gave a little shrug by way of agreement.

Sullivan opened the driver's door. "But we'll still need your help pinning down the connection with Morley – more now than ever, in fact."

Yeah, that sounded about right – no getting away from this job, even if it did belong to UNIT rather than CI5.

"What about them?" Doyle jerked his head toward the creatures.

Sullivan looked worried again. "Well, they've promised to stay put – for now. So long as they aren't disturbed. They won't hesitate to defend themselves if they feel threatened, I'm sure, but for now…I don't know what else we can do. Quite frankly, we have bigger fish to fry."

And that seemed to be that; in the circumstances, they had no choice but to take his word for it. Bodie headed for his car, Doyle at his shoulder, casting one last glance toward the alien creatures. Still there, still real, still made his skin crawl. He got into the car and pulled off, not allowing himself to look back.

They made it about two miles down the road before they ran into a small convoy of UNIT vehicles come looking for them. Bodie pulled the handbrake on and sat back to watch as Sullivan jumped out of the Land Rover just up ahead to hold an animated conversation with the soldier heading the convoy, then wound the window down as he jogged back to update them. Their would-be escort were to be posted as guards around the perimeter of the farm, under strict instructions not to engage with the aliens in any way, thus limiting the likelihood of anyone accidentally encountering the creatures and getting their head blown off. He then scurried back to the Land Rover and they were away again.

Bodie looked at Doyle. "We're in it now, aren't we?"

Doyle rolled his eyes. "Up to our necks, mate."

 

**CI5UNITCI5**

"Ow." Doyle winced under Sullivan's stinging ministrations as the doctor busily cleaned up his head wound.

"They say they were a survey team, operating out of a larger deep-space exploration vessel," Sullivan was explaining to his superior, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, as he worked, ignoring Doyle's fidgeting. UNIT's sick bay wasn't the most obvious place to carry out a de-briefing, but Doyle had had similar sessions in the med room back at CI5 headquarters in his time, so maybe CI5 and UNIT weren't that different after all. "Their ship apparently developed a fault, so they headed for the nearest habitable planet to await rescue – Earth. They just barely made it."

"Just our luck, eh." Lethbridge-Stewart rolled his eyes in a manner that George Cowley would have been proud of, although in most regards he was more or less the polar opposite of the CI5 Controller. Every inch the military gent with his neat little moustache, straight-backed posture and cut-glass accent, he'd looked askance at Doyle and Bodie's casual and now rather grubby attire when they were introduced to him, albeit only for about two seconds – and in fairness, Sullivan's dishevelled appearance had been received in much the same way – before switching his attention to more important matters, such as the fact that they'd been present for an encounter with the aliens. Cowley would have been incensed at the breach of secrecy; Lethbridge-Stewart, on the other hand, had taken it with remarkable equanimity, calmly observing that their fully informed assistance was sure to prove useful and he'd make sure to square it with their superior.

"Well, quite, sir," Sullivan agreed. "They claim that their intention was to avoid any contact with the natives – meaning us, obviously – but then in the confusion following the crash landing, one of their crewmen went missing. And now they're threatening to tear the land apart if we don't return him."

"Situation normal, then," the Brigadier grimly remarked and Doyle wondered just how often this kind of thing happened, in that case – and how they managed to keep a lid on it, every time. Even bearing in mind the top secret classification, that was some impressive covering up. How long had this kind of thing been going on, then, unknown to the general public, and even to other security services?

"And they believe he was abducted by Clive Morley and his associates?" Bodie was leaning forward in his chair to listen intently. To look at him, you'd think he was talking about a bog-standard, everyday investigation, rather than this outer space nonsense…but then he glanced sideways at Doyle with a tiny lift of the eyebrows that clearly expressed his incredulity at the situation they found themselves in.

"Well, at first, they say, they didn't know what had happened to him. They conducted a search; he has some kind of communications device, apparently, so they tried signalling for him – those would have been the transmissions we picked up, sir." Sullivan was still addressing his account primarily to his commanding officer. "Some, anyway; they've also been signalling their mothership. Then he – the chap who went missing, that is – made contact to arrange a rendezvous at that farm, but it was a pair of humans who turned up in his place. They had with them his communicator and translation device – they only had one of those aboard the ship, it seems, and he had it with him when he disappeared, so the others have been sort of stuck, really, without one."

"And these humans who met with the aliens, they made demands?" the Brigadier asked, frowning thoughtfully. He didn't question Sullivan's ability to communicate with the aliens without a translation device, whatever one of those might be. There was a story there, Doyle was sure: a story no one seemed inclined to share.

"They want weapons," Sullivan baldly stated, turning to wash his hands again having finished working on Doyle's head; Doyle instinctively lifted a hand to feel the neat little dressing. "The missing Drashk –"

"Drashk?"

"That's what they call themselves, sir," said Sullivan, turning on a tap to half-fill a glass with water. "The missing Drashk was apparently carrying a firearm similar to those held by the ones we met, which his captors now have possession of. I think you mentioned that Morley had links with arms dealers?" He turned to Doyle for confirmation.

Doyle nodded. "Morley was fairly small fry himself, but he was connected to some much bigger fish. If they've got hold of one of those weapons…" He wasn't sure which was worse: the aliens threatening to blow them all up or the thought of Eddie Stanton or someone else of his ilk in possession of an alien gun capable of knocking walls down.

"Well, the humans apparently demanded an exchange," said Sullivan, offering Doyle the glass of water and a couple of pills, which he accepted because the headache wasn't shifting, and although not too bad it was starting to get wearing and he needed to stay sharp, concussion or no. "More weapons in exchange for the alien. The Drashk refused, things turned ugly and Morley was killed in the crossfire. The other man escaped."

"And Corporal Parker?" asked the fifth man in the room, who'd stayed quiet up till now – a tall, stolid sergeant-major who'd been introduced as Benton.

Sullivan looked grim. "I rather got the impression they'd spooked each other. The Drashk weren't expecting anyone to be at the farm still, Parker wasn't expecting them to return, they couldn't communicate…"

"And things got ugly again?" Doyle sourly finished for him, setting the glass of water aside.

"So they claim," Sullivan carefully agreed.

"Do you believe them?" the Brigadier asked.

Sullivan thought about it for a moment, and then nodded. "Yes, sir, I do. I believe them when they say they had no hostile intentions when their ship came down. However I also believe that they won't hesitate to carry out their threats if their missing crewman isn't returned to them soon. Their mothership will arrive to collect them within a matter of hours, they say. If he isn't found by then, we could be in a lot of trouble."

"Did you mention," Doyle asked, "That their crewman is not being held in any official capacity? That he's fallen in with a bunch of crooks and we might need a bit more time to track him down than they're giving us, now we know what's going on?"

"I did," said Sullivan, wearing a rueful expression. "However, the Drashk are of the opinion that our failure to control our criminal underclass is not their problem. They might have a point, but that doesn't help us now."

"How would they have known?" Benton piped up again, looking thoughtful. "These crooks – Morley and his chums – how would they have known about the aliens, to find and capture one?"

That was a good question, Doyle thought. "Well, they couldn't have, could they?" he mused. "Had to be a coincidence: right place right time."

"So the next question is," Bodie added, "What were they doing in the right place at the right time to stumble over that thing?"

"Which rather brings us back around to square one, doesn't it?" the Brigadier crisply observed. "That's the question we were hoping you could answer when we agreed to liaise with you. Clive Morley was under investigation by CI5. We now know the reason he was out at Elderbrook Farm yesterday – blackmail. But that wasn't why CI5 had him under observation. So perhaps you can tell us: what was he involved in that could have brought him into contact with our crashed aliens? And where might he have taken the creature once he'd found it?"

Also very good questions. Unfortunately they weren't questions Doyle knew the answers to off the top of his head. "Our investigation was in the very early stages," he admitted. "I wish we had more information for you, I really do, but we don't."

"Morley was under investigation," the Brigadier repeated. "There must have been a reason for that."

"There was," Bodie agreed. "But we weren't privy to it, not the details, anyway. We can find you your answers, but it's going to take some digging."

"The clock is ticking," said the Brigadier, looking grim.

 

**UNITCI5UNIT**

"This is the crash site, here." Benton indicated a location that had already been marked out on a map and Bodie leaned in to get a closer look.

Time being of the essence, they'd split up to cover more ground: Bodie working with Sergeant-Major Benton to narrow down what Morley might have been doing to bring him into contact with the crashed aliens in the first place, while Doyle was off with Sullivan, working other lines of enquiry. It made sense, he knew, from where Lethbridge-Stewart was standing, to split them up to follow up as many leads as possible in the time available and to make best use of their specialised expertise, since this enquiry was now on their turf, so to speak…but he never felt entirely comfortable, working with a stranger instead of his partner.

Whether by accident or design, it seemed that the Drashk had managed to crash in quite a quiet area, away from any main roads or population centres.

"What's this?" Bodie pointed out a structure of some kind that was indicated on the map quite close to the crash site. Not a farm, something else. It was the closest structure to the crash site, so chances were that if anyone had been close enough to hear the crash and investigate they'd have come from there.

Benton took a look. "It's a private air strip – belongs to a small flying club."

So, non-residential, probably all kinds of people coming and going at odd times, little or no pattern to their movement, private aircraft in and out…there was a lot of potential there for misuse of the criminal variety. If Morley and his mates had been anywhere in the vicinity of the crash, and it was now known that they had been, they'd have been at the flying club; Bodie would lay money on it. "Got a membership list?"

"Yes, I'll dig it out for you." Benton picked up a file and rifled through it, pulled out a sheet of paper. "We've already conducted background checks on all the members; nothing came up."

But when UNIT checked the place and its members out, it would have only been a routine background check in passing; they'd had no reason to suspect anyone there was actually involved in any way. They knew different now and that warranted going over the details again, in more depth. Bodie scanned the list. None of the names jumped out at him. "I'll run them past CI5 records," he suggested. "You never know, there might be something there that wouldn't show up on a police check."

"Be our guest."

"Did this flying club have anything on their books for that evening?"

Benton shook his head. "They'd been open earlier in the day – well, weekends are a busy time for them. But it was all over by the time the ship came down. The place would have been locked up tight – and was, when we searched the area."

"We'll need the names of everyone who was there that day – not just members, anyone else they might have had with them," said Bodie. Another thought occurred. "The members and their guests wouldn't be the only ones with access to the site, though, would they? What about staff – janitors, groundsmen, that kind of thing?"

A light came on in Benton's eyes. "I'll find out."

 

**CI5UNITCI5**

"I've just been on the blower to my HQ," Doyle announced as Sullivan rejoined him after being given a quick once over by one of his medical assistants, since he couldn't very well doctor himself.

"What did they say?"

"Well, it was my boss I spoke to," said Doyle, "Mr Cowley, and most of what he said I'd rather not repeat, tell you the truth. He's not happy." And that was the understatement of the century, right there. "But he did mention that Clive Morley's car has been found, burnt out. Forensics are going over it now. And there are some surveillance reports we should take a look at, but we'll have to make a stop on the way. Come on, we can take Bodie's car."

"He won't mind?" Sullivan's expression was quizzical.

"No, he will," Doyle cheerfully replied. He was starting to feel better now – the pills had kicked in, making it easier to think, and it was surprising what a difference it made. "But I told him we were taking it and he didn't say no. Come on."

As they headed for the car park, they passed the pretty corporal who appeared to be the Brigadier's assistant, or something – Bell, her name was. Doyle made sure to flash his most charming smile at her as they passed. Well, you never knew your luck, even if the world might be ending sometime soon.

"So where are we going?" Sullivan asked as they got into the car.

"Clive Morley had a sister, name of Jean – Jean Lennox, these days," Doyle told him. Visiting that sister had been second on his and Bodie's list of things to do today, before they got sidetracked by events at the farm. Still, they were only a few hours late. "They had a bit of a love-hate relationship, by all accounts, so if they were on the outs just lately she won't know anything, but on the other hand if they were having a good spell, he might have told her something. I dunno, it's worth having a chat with her, anyway."

 

**UNITCI5UNIT**

As he put the phone down, Bodie was already running through more options in his head, checking off actions taken and weighing up other possibilities. What hadn't they thought of yet that might make the difference on this case?

"How are you getting on, Mr Bodie?" the clipped, precise tones of the Brigadier asked from somewhere behind him, cutting across his train of thought.

As a rule, Bodie generally asked not to be addressed as 'Mr', but he let it slide on this occasion. "Putting out a few feelers," he said as he turned to face UNIT's commanding officer, "About that missing gun. Finding the creature is the priority, I know, but I don't like the idea of a weapon like that hitting the open market." The damage just that one gun could cause didn't bear thinking about. Whoever had it could make their fortune, selling it to the highest bidder – if they hadn't already. But if something like that came onto the open market, it was going to be noticed, talked about, and that might give them a sliver of the chance they needed to track it down.

"Neither do I, I can assure you," the Brigadier agreed. "Good thinking. This needs to be contained and that means finding the weapon as well as the creature."

It was almost like being back in the army, working on this here at UNIT, surrounded by uniforms, regulation and formality, so different from the more casual approach of CI5; it was surprising how easy it was to slide back into that military mindset, as comfortable as he'd become with CI5's informality. "My people are still going over the attendance list from the flying club," Bodie continued, automatically adopting a formal stance almost before he'd even noticed he was doing it. "They all look legit so far, but something might still show up."

The Brigadier nodded. "I've alerted Space Control and Jodrell Bank to be on the look-out," he said. "So with any luck we should at least get some warning when the Drashk ship makes its approach."

"Very good, sir." Bodie glanced toward the door as Benton hurried back in. "Any joy?"

"The manager at Ellesmore Flying Club is a Mr Dennis Randall – he's on the member's list we've already checked out," Benton reported. "He employs a cleaning lady from the local village, a Mrs Doreen Finch, and a groundskeeper, also from the village, a Mr Cyril Haggett. They've both got clean records, only it seems Haggett has a bit of a dicky back, so it's his son who does most of the work these days, but that's strictly unofficial. Randall wasn't keen to admit it."

That sounded promising. "Unofficial because…?" Bodie immediately asked.

"Unofficial because the members wouldn't like it if they knew. The lad's got a criminal record," said Benton with a grin. "Did a spell for aggravated robbery a while back."

Now that was more like it. "Well then," said Bodie. "Let's go have a little chat with young Master Haggett, find out if he's got anything interesting to tell us. Only we'll have to take one of your vehicles," he added, "Doyle's run off with mine."

 

**CI5UNITCI5**

Doyle slung himself back into the car and grabbed the radio. "Four-five to base, four-five to base."

"Receiving you, four-five." The operator sounded bright and perky.

"Hallo, Julie," Doyle greeted her as Sullivan opened the passenger door and joined him in the car. "Listen, I've just been having a little chat with Clive Morley's sister. She reckons if we want to know what her brother was up to over the weekend, we should talk to a bloke called Kenny Wilson. We're on our way round there now. Do us a favour and pull all the files for when we bring him in."

"Roger that, four-five. We'll have them ready for you."

"Ta, love." He stowed the radio and released the handbrake, pulled out into the early afternoon traffic.

"So you want to take this man Wilson in for questioning immediately?" Sullivan enquired.

"Well, we could play it softly, keep him under observation for a bit first, see what he does, where he goes, but from what you said earlier, we don't have time for that today," Doyle confirmed. "We're going to have to pull him in and get him talking, pronto."

"Fair enough," Sullivan nodded. "You're the expert."

Speaking of expertise….

Doyle glanced sideways at Sullivan as they drove. "Mind if I ask you a question?"

"Of course, go ahead."

"You can talk to the aliens." It was a statement, fact; Doyle had seen it with his own eyes. He was still having a bit of trouble with the _idea_ of there being aliens in the first place, if he stopped and let himself think about it, but it was hard to deny the evidence of his own eyes.

In an instant, Sullivan's expression went from open and affable to cautious and guarded. "Yes," he agreed.

"Now, I was standing right next to you and all I heard was growling and snarling," Doyle told him, spinning the wheel to turn a corner. "But you heard words; you could understand what they were saying, right? And they understood you, an' all."

"That's right." He still looked wary, as if he could see where this was heading and was nervous about it.

"But I don't get the impression they could understand anyone else speaking English – that's how your lad Parker got himself killed, isn't it? Could they understand me or Bodie?"

Sullivan was silent for a moment, but then said, "I don't think so, no."

"Right." Doyle braked as they came up behind a queue of traffic waiting at a red light. "So my question is: how does that work, then? How is it that you can communicate with them, when no one else can?"

"We don't actually know that no one else can," Sullivan argued. "Only that no one else who's seen them so far has been able to."

Doyle shook his head. "Oh, come on. That's just splitting hairs." Green light and off again. "You could talk to them. Bodie and I couldn't; Corporal Parker couldn't. But you could. How?"

Sullivan sighed and rubbed at his head in consternation. "I've already told you," he said at length.

"No you haven't."

"I did. I said it wasn't easy to explain. That's the truth."

"Try," Doyle pressed.

Sullivan stared straight ahead, deep in thought. "I don't really understand it myself," he said at last. "I suppose you might call it a parting gift from a friend."

Talk about cryptic. "That's not an explanation," Doyle protested.

"It's the only explanation I have, I'm afraid."

It was clear that Doyle wasn't going to get anything else out of him on this subject. He dropped it, unsatisfied, and drove in silence for a few streets, eyes fixed on the road ahead while Sullivan stared quietly out of the window.

They weren't far from Wilson's address now. So the next question was going to be: would he come quietly or kick up a fuss? If Doyle had Bodie with him, it wouldn't really matter either way, but he didn't, he was with Sullivan, who might be able to communicate with aliens but was otherwise a relatively unknown quantity still. He seemed all right, even if he did talk a bit like someone's granddad at times, but there was no telling how he would or wouldn't handle himself if it got rough, and he wasn't carrying a weapon.

They'd better hope Wilson came quietly, then.

Doyle pulled up outside the crumbling concrete block that Kenny Wilson called home. "Right then," he said. "Let's see what this bloke's got to say for himself."

 

**UNITCI5UNIT**

"Look out, he's running," Bodie shouted as Christopher Haggett decided to leg it rather than answer any questions – and if that wasn't a confession of guilt, he didn't know what was. He began to give chase, only to stumble over Mr Haggett Senior, who got in the way to protest his son's innocence, giving the lad a good head start in the process. Cursing under his breath, Bodie pushed past the old man and sprinted full steam through the house, trying to regain lost ground.

He needn't have bothered, as it turned out. Young Christopher had headed for the back door and run straight into Benton, who had him by the scruff of the neck by the time Bodie caught up.

"Good catch," Bodie puffed…and then had to fend off the defensive protests of old Cyril Haggett once more while Benton hauled the lad off, struggling and yelling blue murder all the way. It took more minutes than he'd have liked to extricate himself and hurry out to the vehicle, where he found Benton waiting for him, a sullen Christopher Haggett already secured in the back

"The old man's not too happy then," Benton remarked.

"Not much, no," Bodie wryly agreed. "Protests a bit too much, if you ask me – I reckon the lad's in it up to his neck and the old man knows it."

Benton nodded. "We'd better take him back to base, then."

"Yeah," said Bodie. "Find out what he knows about these aliens…"

Aliens. His ears heard the words coming out of his mouth and the absurdity of it hit him hard all over again, just when he'd thought he was doing so well. A groan escaped as he let his head drop, a wave of renewed disbelief washing over him. How had today turned out like this?

When he looked up again, Benton was wearing a sympathetic expression. "It hits us all a bit that way at first," he said. "Don't worry, you'll soon get used to it."

"Yeah, I'm not sure I want to get used to it," Bodie muttered.

"If it helps," said Benton, "Just think of it as a crime. Forget about the alien part. There's been an abduction – doesn't matter who. Someone's been abducted, a weapon has been stolen, and we have to get them both back before it kicks off a major international incident, as it were."

"Intergalactic incident, I think you mean," Bodie snorted. Okay, he was over it now, had to be because they didn't have time to waste. "Come on: let's take the lad in, find out what he knows."

 

**CI5UNITCI5**

"Doyle!" The irate shout reverberated along the corridors of CI5 headquarters as warning of a fast approaching storm.

"Uh oh," Doyle murmured to Sullivan as he stood and slowly turned around to face the music, closing the file he'd been skimming through. Sullivan looked bemused as he did likewise; poor sod had no idea what was about to hit them.

"Doyle!" Cowley bellowed again as he stalked into the room. Sounded like he was in an even worse mood than when they'd spoken on the phone earlier – he clearly hadn't got it out of his system yet. "When I sent you over to talk to UNIT this morning I intended you to gather information, not join the organisation. Were my instructions not clear?" His eyes raked over the pair of them, but if he was at all curious about the scrapes and bruises they were both sporting, it didn't show. "Where's Bodie, who's this?"

He already knew where Bodie was, Doyle knew he knew – Lethbridge-Stewart had contacted him to request their ongoing assistance on this case. That was half the reason he was in such a rage.

"This is Surgeon-Lieutenant Harry Sullivan," he offered, "From –"

"From UNIT, yes," Cowley sourly finished for him.

Sullivan began to offer a polite smile and a hand to shake, caught the frosty glare Cowley was directing at him and thought better of it, instead folded his hands behind his back and nodded a crisp, "Mr Cowley, sir," instead. That was one thing you could say about military types: they knew how to do formal.

"And Bodie's still helping UNIT with their enquiries, I suppose," Cowley sniped.

"Yes, sir. We both are. Sorry, sir," said Doyle with a helpless shrug. "It's a UNIT job. I'm sorry, sir," he added again for good measure.

Cowley glowered. "Oh yes, I've heard all about UNIT's jurisdiction on this case – another investigation snaked from under us by that mob. What have they got to do with a man like Clive Morley, can you tell me that?"

Doyle had his mouth open to answer the question before he realised that he couldn't. He really, really couldn't. He'd joked about it with Bodie earlier, about being on the other side of the classification now, had predicted how Cowley would react, but now he was face to face with the moment of truth, the impossibility of the position he was in absolutely floored him. Because it wasn't just the top secret classification, he now realised – if it came to it, he'd be prepared to tell Cowley the truth and face the consequences, classification be damned. No, the real problem, the real reason for all the secrecy was the absolute impossibility of having a serious conversation about aliens with someone who'd never seen one. He'd be laughed out of the job. So no, he couldn't tell Cowley why UNIT were interested in Clive Morley's death, not the real reason, anyway. And a half-truth wouldn't do either, telling as much of the story as was believable and twisting the rest into something that would fit, that would fall apart like a house of cards in no time. There was nothing he could say that would answer that question, not in a way Cowley would accept.

Sullivan came to his rescue. "That's classified information, I'm afraid, sir."

Well, he was taking his life into his own hands there, all right. Cowley's outrage was a sight and a half to behold. His mouth opened and closed like a fish, no words coming out – he was speechless, actually speechless, for several moments. It was the most amazing and terrifying thing Doyle had seen all day, aliens included.

"Classified information!" he roared at last, scarlet with rage. "Classified information! My agents are allowed to know what's going on and I'm not, is that it? You'll make use of my organisation, my resources, without ever telling me what it's all about, is that it? And I'm supposed to just stand here, say nothing, hear nothing, see nothing, is that it?"

To his credit, Sullivan's expression of polite, affable regret didn't so much as flicker beneath the onslaught. "I'm sorry, sir," he mildly repeated.

"Oh aye," Cowley seethed. "You're sorry but you're not budging, are you? Either of you. Kenny Wilson," he snapped at Doyle. "I thought you were bringing him in."

"Couldn't find him," Doyle admitted, frustrated all over again at having hit such a complete dead end just when they'd seemed to be getting somewhere. They were losing too much time, having to check all these files and reports in search of a lead. "He's not at home, not at any of the usual haunts – left home yesterday and hasn't been seen since. I was hoping there'd be something in here that might help," he gestured at the files they'd been sifting through, "but no joy yet."

"This will probably interest you, then." Cowley slapped the file he'd been holding on top of the pile they'd already amassed. "Report just in – we've got an eyewitness claims they saw Wilson getting into a vehicle matching the description of Clive Morley's car yesterday afternoon, shortly after you lost track of him."

"Morley again." Doyle picked up the file and skimmed the report, holding it out slightly so Sullivan could read over his shoulder. "Did forensics get anything off his car?"

"Oh, they can tell us how it was destroyed, in minute detail," Cowley grumped. "But any evidence it may have contained was destroyed along with it."

"This garage Wilson was seen coming out of…" Sullivan began. He'd picked up on the same section of the report that had just caught Doyle's eye.

"It belongs to James Galbraith," Doyle finished for him. Now that was interesting. Galbraith and Eddie Stanton were business partners, of a sort, liked to present a whiter-than-white face to the outside world while getting involved in all kinds of mucky business behind the scenes …not that it could be proved, of course. They'd always been too clever for that.

Cowley nodded. "It's not cast-iron, but it's the closest to a tangible link we've come yet."

 

**UNITCI5UNIT**

"You can't do this – you've got no right to arrest me like this," Christopher Haggett loudly protested. He'd been singing much the same song ever since he was picked up, kept it up all the way back to UNIT HQ, and then started up again the moment Bodie walked into the room currently assigned for his interrogation. Appropriately Spartan, but clean, spacious and airy, with large windows to provide plenty of light, the room wasn't exactly up to the standards of the dark, murky holding cells CI5 liked to employ for these things, but in the circumstances it was going to have to do. At least there were blinds on the window, which someone had had the brains to draw. It didn't add much in the way of gloom, but it was a start.

Standing just behind the young man, Bodie leaned in close to murmur in his ear, "Oh, you haven't been arrested, son. We're not the police."

Haggett glanced around the room until his eyes fell on Benton, who was standing near the door, arms folded across his chest, doing his best impression of a tree: tall, solid and immovable. The Brigadier had handed the interview over to Bodie, acknowledging CI5's expertise in such matters, but since Doyle wasn't back yet and they couldn't wait, Benton had been assigned as his back-up again. Bodie privately thought the man might prove a bit straight-laced and by-the-book to really appreciate, still less actively participate in, CI5 interrogation tactics – a bit like UNIT in general, really – but with any luck Haggett would crack before they needed to worry about that. He wasn't exactly a seasoned pro.

"Army?" Haggett still sounded bullish, but there was a hint of nervousness creeping into his voice now, his eyes flicking from side to side as Bodie circled him, making sure he was always just that bit too close for comfort. Wouldn't want the lad feeling at his ease, after all.

Bodie shook his head. "Guess again."

Haggett looked back at Benton in his uniform. "Army don't arrest people…do they?"

"I told you," Bodie reminded him. "You haven't been arrested. We're just going to have a little chat," he again leaned in close to whisper, "nice and cosy," in the lad's ear.

"I want a solicitor," Haggett defiantly demanded.

"No solicitors. Just you and me. And if you don't want to talk to me, then he," Bodie nodded toward Benton, who picked up his cue and glowered, "might have something to say, instead."

"I haven't done nothing," Haggett insisted. "You can't prove anything."

"Tell me about prison, Christopher."

"What?"

"You were there for a while, weren't you? Now that can't have been much fun, young lad like you…" He leaned in close again, standing behind the lad to hang over his shoulder in a way he knew would intimidate, kept his voice low and menacing. "The thing is, Christopher, I can make sure you go back there. I can make sure you go back there for a long, long time –"

"I haven't done nothing!" Haggett's voice was becoming shrill. That was a good sign.

"– but if you cooperate with me," Bodie continued as if he hadn't spoken, "then maybe, just maybe, all this could go away." He waited a moment to allow that to sink in before adding, "If you're lucky, that is. Are you feeling lucky, Christopher?"

Haggett was looking more and more uncertain, but clung tightly to his belligerence as if he thought it might save him. "I've got nothing to say to you," he sullenly insisted and made a move as if to rise from his seat. Bodie clamped a heavy hand on his shoulder, shoving him back into place and holding him there.

"I hear you've been looking out for your old dad since you came home," he remarked in conversational fashion. "Your mum died while you were inside, didn't she? That must have stung a bit, having to miss the funeral." Haggett's face was darkening; he'd struck a nerve. "How do you reckon your dad will cope, when you go back inside?"

Haggett shook his head. "I've got nothing to say." He didn't sound quite so sure any more, though.

"He might have a hard time of it, of course, when your associates come looking for their pound of flesh…"

"What?"

"Well, they're not going to be very happy, are they?" Bodie lightly suggested, "When we pick them up after talking to you."

"I haven't done nothing. I haven't told you nothing," Haggett protested.

"You think that'll matter?" Bodie snapped. "When we turn them over after taking you in, do you really think they'll believe you didn't talk? Do you think the prison guards will protect you? Do you think your dad can protect himself?"

"It's not my fault!"

Ah, now that was a new tune, now they were getting somewhere. "What's not your fault? Come on, Christopher, you might as well tell me now. You're not leaving this room until you do, and I've got all the time in the world." It was a lie, but what Haggett didn't know wouldn't hurt their chances of breaking him.

"I can't…" It was little more than a whimper.

"Why? You're scared of what they might do?" Haggett nodded. Bodie shook his head. "Wrong answer. You should be scared of what we might do. Because we're going to get them either way, but the question is: will we have a reason to protect you? Or shall we just leave you to the wolves?"

Haggett looked to Benton, frantic. "You hear this? He's threatening me."

Benton's stiff posture suggested a degree of discomfort with the situation, but his poker face couldn't be faulted. "I never heard a thing, son."

"He's deaf, you see. And blind. So come on, Christopher," Bodie sternly pressed. "What's it to be?"

"All I ever did was let them in, that's all, I just unlocked the door, I never done nothing else, you can't lock me up for that!"

And there it was, just like that. If only they'd all crack so easily.

 

**CI5UNITCI5**

"I tell you what, there'd better be something here, after all this," Doyle grumbled as he span the steering wheel to turn a corner, on the approach to the backstreet garage owned by James Galbraith where Kenny Wilson might or might not have met up with Clive Morley yesterday afternoon, sometime before Morley met his maker at the hands of the Drashk out at Elderbrook Farm. It wasn't much to go on, since the eye witness report was far from definite, but it was all they had.

"The whole case has been like this," said Sullivan with a sigh, "One false lead after another, never anything solid."

"Well, after chasing our tails all afternoon," Doyle said, "And that countdown ticking away, it would be nice to find some kind of sign we're on the right track."

Sullivan snorted. "One with large lettering saying 'kidnapped alien here', for preference," he dryly suggested and Doyle chuckled in spite of himself.

"Yeah, something like that would do for starters," he agreed, pulling up at the side of the road, just in front of the garage. It all looked quiet, but that didn't always mean much, especially in an area like this, so he took a good look around as he exited the car, on the alert for anything out of the ordinary.

The small garage owned by Galbraith sat in the middle of a tired, rundown little side street that had probably been quite up-market once upon a time, just on the corner of an overgrown lane that divided the terraced row. It seemed to go back a fair way, but it was hard to tell from outside since rusty shutters were down across the front and looked like they had been for some time; it didn't seem like the place saw much business, if any. There was still a sign announcing 'Auto Repairs', but it was faded and worn, the windows above the workshop were cracked and grimy, and the roof was starting to sag. All in all, the place looked almost as derelict as the boarded up house next door, although there was scaffolding along the side of the building, down the lane, which suggested that at least some attempt at structural repair was being made.

"Well," said Doyle, "I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that this place isn't at the top of Galbraith's portfolio."

"It's not the most shining example of business success, no," Sullivan agreed.

There was a door set into the shutters across the front of the garage. Doyle banged on it and then gave it a good rattle, called out, "Hello! Anyone home?" but there was no reply; it all seemed quiet as the grave inside. "Take a look round the back," he suggested to Sullivan, who headed off around the corner into the lane while Doyle took a few steps off the pavement and into the road to see if he could see anything in the windows upstairs from that angle.

He felt, rather than heard, someone approaching from behind, and glanced around to see two men passing him as they crossed the road. They might have been heading for the garage, or they might have been heading on past, but Doyle didn't wait to find out because one of them was Kenny Wilson himself, the man he'd just spent half the afternoon looking for…but he was accompanied by a hulking bruiser of a man who was built like the side of a shed, because clearly nothing was going to be easy today.

Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound. "Kenny Wilson?" Doyle called out.

The men turned to face him, looking suspicious. "Who wants to know?" the bruiser gruffly demanded.

Doyle addressed Wilson again, ignoring him. "Can I have a word? Just need to ask a few questio – oy!"

He got no further because Wilson was off, without waiting to hear any more, sprinting full pelt down the street – although he got no further than the mouth of the lane, which he reached just as Sullivan reappeared around the corner. The pair collided and went down in a tangle of limbs, while the bruiser, without any further ado, swung for Doyle.

Doyle ducked and countered with a quick jab in the region of the nearest kidney as he swung around, but the bruiser didn't even appear to feel the blow, simply swiped at him again…and this time Doyle wasn't quite fast enough to avoid it and the glancing blow across the back of his neck sent him reeling. As he spun around, he caught a glimpse of Wilson struggling back to his feet nearby and attempting to run for it again, with Sullivan in hot pursuit, but he couldn't worry about them right now; he had troubles enough of his own. He blocked and parried a couple more punches, even managed to land a few of his own, but his opponent might as well have been built out of brick for all the impact he made. Then the bruiser got in a heavy blow to the sternum that knocked the breath out of him, followed it up with a hefty right hook to the jaw that sent him crashing head first into the garage shutters, and it was all over.

Winded, Doyle lay sprawled against the rusty shutters for a moment, waiting for his head to stop spinning. This, he told himself, was the reason why it wasn't a good idea to get into a fight when you already had a spot of concussion, even if you were feeling better, enough to fool yourself that you were fine now. There was no way that was ever going to end well. Only then did he remember to look for his opponent, wondering why the bruiser hadn't pressed home his advantage, but the man appeared to have vanished into thin air.

Doyle clambered back to his feet and made his way over to where Sullivan had a still struggling Wilson face down in the middle of the road, arms pinned behind his back, with a knee in the small of his back to keep him down. So apparently the Navy did teach its medical officers how to handle themselves in a fight. Good to know.

"Are you all right?" Sullivan called as Doyle approached.

"Yeah." Hitting those shutters head first had re-awoken his concussion headache, but the only real damage was to his pride. Doyle pulled a pair of handcuffs out of a pocket and bent down to slap them on Wilson. "'D you see where he went?"

"That way." Hauling Wilson to his feet, Sullivan nodded over his shoulder toward the lane.

Doyle scanned the lane, but there was no sign of the bruiser. He couldn't have got that far, surely? There was plenty of cover down there, mind, between the scaffolding, assorted dustbins and weeds. Still, they had Wilson now. That was something, at least. "Come on," he said, "Let's take him in."

They'd just about reached the car when a shot rang out and Wilson crumpled with a strangled cry.

Doyle threw himself to the ground and crawled behind the car for whatever cover it could offer, glanced across to see that Sullivan had done the same. Where the hell had that shot come from? He frantically scanned the area, and caught a glimpse of movement up on the scaffolding that ran along the side of the garage. There he was.

"You see him?" Sullivan called in a low voice.

"Yeah," Doyle confirmed, shifting slightly to try to get a better look, hopefully without getting his head blown off, as the car and garage wall were obscuring his view. He could just about make out the bruiser, crouched low at the edge of the scaffolding up at the first floor level – then quickly ducked back as the man fired again, the shot pinging off the side of the car.

It was only a few feet from the car to the scaffolding, but it might as well have been a mile, given the advantage the bruiser had – Doyle would never be able to cross the distance between here and there without getting hit, not without covering fire, but Sullivan wasn't armed.

Keeping as low as possible, Doyle carefully moved along behind the car until he reached the driver's door, which he pulled open as surreptitiously as he could manage, just wide enough to stick his arm through and fish around under the seat. Bodie usually kept a spare weapon stashed under there, just in case…and there it was. His questing fingers closed around the gun and swiftly worked it free of the tape securing it. Then, letting the car door drop shut again, he crawled over to where Sullivan was crouched, keeping a careful watch out for the gunman.

"Here you go," he muttered, handing the gun over, attention focused on the scaffold opposite. "Cover me."

Without waiting for any arguments or counter suggestions, he sucked in a deep breath and ran for it. The air above his head promptly exploded with gunfire from behind, covering his run just as he'd asked. Doyle kept low and kept running. He made it to the scaffolding in one piece and started to climb, had just about reached the first floor gantry when he had to twist aside and duck as the bruiser shot at him and only just missed. He kept his head low as the man's heavy footsteps pounded past along the boards, and then pulled himself up onto the platform to give chase.

The bruiser seemed to have disappeared again, but up ahead was a corner where the scaffolding dipped around the back of the building. Gun in hand, Doyle carefully inched his way forward, moving as quietly as was possible on those creaky boards, trying not to announce his approach. He'd almost reached the corner when the bruiser suddenly whirled back around it, gun raised ready to fire.

Doyle fired first. It was a split-second reaction that saved his life, and not for the first time. As the bruiser's body thudded onto the platform just in front of him, he leaned heavily against the rail and let out a long, shuddering breath. That had been just a bit too close for comfort.

He gave himself a moment to get his breath back and steady rattled nerves, and then crouched down to take the man's gun and rifle through his pockets in search of identification or anything else that might help shed a bit of light on the investigation, cursing under his breath because they might have been able to get some useful information out of the man, if it had been possible to take him alive. He wasn't carrying anything – no ID, no papers, nothing. Doyle gave it up as a bad job and headed back down to the street, where he found Sullivan up to his elbows in blood, busily working away on Wilson.

"He's alive?" Doyle was amazed.

Sullivan didn't spare him so much as a glance, focused as he was on his patient. "Just about," he replied. "What about the other one?"

"Dead. Him or me, I'm afraid."

Sullivan nodded. "Could you radio for an ambulance?" he asked, head bent over Wilson still. "If we can get him to hospital in good time, I think he might pull through. We still have a lot of questions to ask him."

That they did. There were advantages to running around with a doctor in tow, Doyle decided, and keeping wounded suspects alive to answer questions was one of them. "So this afternoon hasn't been a complete waste of time, then, after all," he approved, reaching into the car to grab the radio, which had started to squawk anyway.

It was Bodie. Doyle cut across whatever he was babbling about to request a couple of ambulances – one for a wounded suspect, one for a corpse – before asking what he was talking about.

It turned out, according to Bodie, that whatever they'd been up to back at UNIT had cracked the case wide open already, so maybe all this running around had, in fact, been a waste of time.

"All right," Doyle told him, "We'll meet you back there."

 

**UNITCI5UNIT**

A shaft of late afternoon sun had unexpectedly broken through the clouds and Bodie basked in it, perched on a low wall just outside UNIT HQ's main building, watching as his car came zooming across the car park to screech to a halt right in front of him. It was about time Doyle made it back – it was getting boring, sitting around like a spare part watching UNIT soldiers bustling around looking efficient when he was itching to get going already.

"Hallo. Brought it back in one piece, have you?" he greeted his partner as he jumped out of the car, pleased to have visual confirmation that Doyle was unscathed after whatever he'd got himself into earlier. Then he spotted that the car wasn't quite in one piece, actually, even if Doyle himself was, and frowned. "Is that a bullet hole?"

"Oh, we've had an exciting afternoon, mate," Doyle airily replied.

"We?" Bodie looked at the car again. Doyle might have gone out in company, but he'd definitely returned alone. "Where's your shadow?"

"Went in the ambulance in case Wilson got chatty," said Doyle, glancing around in bemusement at the flurry of activity as another bunch of soldiers jogged past lugging various bits of kit. "What's all this?"

"Mobilising the troops," Bodie informed him.

"Is that what they call it," Doyle snarked. "So this breakthrough of yours really is looking promising, then?"

"Oh, the lad we pulled in couldn't tell us enough, once he got going," Bodie cheerfully confirmed. It had been a bit like a dam bursting, the words just came pouring out – they'd had a job shutting him up, in the end. "Then once we knew where to look, the rest started to come together."

"Something about a flying club, you said."

"Yeah. You know how we've been trying to crack Stanton's supply route, never had any joy?"

"The flying club?" Doyle whistled, long and low. He was impressed, then. "That is a breakthrough," he conceded.

"And it seems they had a shipment through on Saturday night," Bodie continued.

"Illegal arms?"

"Well, our informant couldn't say for sure what it was," Bodie admitted. Haggett was too far down the food chain for that. "Just that they were there moving stuff through, after hours – he unlocked the gates for them, hung around to help out and lock up again."

"So when that spaceship came down…"

"They were close enough to hear it," Bodie confirmed. "Close enough to investigate."

"And that would be how they found the missing creature – the what's it called, the Drashk."

"Bingo. Haggett heard the bang, saw a bunch of them taking off to see what it was, and reckons he heard them saying they had something special this time – the big score."

"Well," said Doyle, "An alien complete with alien gun sounds special to me."

"Exactly. And they cleared out pretty sharpish, according to Haggett."

"Bit of a weak link for them, then, this lad of yours," Doyle observed. "Sounds very chatty. So where do we think the creature is now? At this flying club still?"

Bodie shook his head. "No, that's been searched already. It looks like they moved it on immediately."

"So we're not actually any further forward, then?" Doyle frowned.

"Oh, ye of little faith," Bodie mocked. "No, while you were off playing cops and robbers, we've been doing real detective work."

"Oh, is that what you call it," Doyle snorted. "Okay then, don't keep me in suspense – what've you found?"

"Haggett told us where the shipments are taken after they've been moved through the club – he's been with them to help unload when they were short-handed," Bodie explained.

"Okay, and?"

"Warehouse along the river bank, East London," Bodie told him. "Course, it's not owned by Stanton himself – registered to a shell company that's owned by another shell company, you know how it goes – but the trail points back to him in the end. And Haggett named him as the boss. It's not solid yet, wouldn't stand up in court," he admitted. "Cowley wouldn't touch it until we had more to go on."

"No, but he's been warned off them before, hasn't he," Doyle reminded him. "That's half the reason he's so keen to bust them now and make it stick. Stanton's got friends in high places."

"And we all know how much the old man loves that kind of thing," Bodie agreed. "Well, anyway, this mob don't seem too worried about all that, given the deadline: act first, get evidence later kind of thing." He waved a hand at the bustle of activity around them. "So, the Brigadier's putting an operation together to raid the place, get that creature back before its people start to drop lightning bombs on our heads. We'll be heading out as soon as this lot get their act together."

"So UNIT are going to take Stanton down, mob-handed?" Doyle shook his head and gave a wry little chuckle. "That'll push Cowley right over the edge – he's already steaming."

"Yeah, I can imagine." How Cowley might react to this development didn't bear thinking about, in fact, especially if UNIT simply retrieved the alien and left the case against Stanton hanging. But they had to prioritise – and the space invaders took priority, had to.

"Right, well, if we're heading out again, I need more ammo," said Doyle. "Have you got any?"

"Go see Corporal Bell. She can sort you out." Bodie waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Doyle grinned. "Yeah, I bet she can," he retorted, heading inside.

And that left Bodie at a loose end again. He wandered over to help finish loading up the trucks while he waited, then after a while spotted Benton approaching and called over, "About ready for the off, are we?"

"We'll be moving out in two minutes," Benton confirmed. "Do you know if Dr Sullivan is back yet? The Brig sent a man over to the hospital to relieve him, but he hasn't checked in."

Bodie shook his head. "Haven't seen him, no."

"Well, we'll have to go without him, if he doesn't get back in time," said Benton, and Bodie wondered how that would work, if and when they found the missing alien – unless UNIT had other staff members who shared Sullivan's strange ability to communicate with the aliens…which, of course, was entirely possible. Why assume there was only the one of them?

"Will you be able to communicate with the creatures without him?" he asked, more in hope than expectation of being given a straight answer.

Benton grinned. "Oh, we'll manage," he cheerfully replied. "Will you be taking your car? Or riding with us?"

No, a straight answer on that subject had been too much to hope for, clearly. "My car, I think," Bodie replied. "Just waiting for Doyle to get kitted out – and there he is now."

Doyle was wearing his thinking face as he drifted back out of the building. That was never a good sign.

"I know that look," Bodie wryly observed as he met his partner at the car. Doyle thought too much, that was his trouble. "What's up?"

"Not sure," Doyle admitted with a frown. "Something's not sitting straight, back of my mind." He waved a hand helplessly as a gesture of his inability to pin down what was bothering him. "We've missed something."

"Like what?" Bodie trusted his partner's instincts, but they were running out of time fast – the convoy was about to start rolling.

Doyle opened the car door, but didn't get in, instead leaned against the car looking troubled. "I dunno. Something. Can't quite put my finger on it."

"About the case? Ray, we've been trying to crack Stanton's operation for how long now? I know it's not iron-clad, but this is the most solid lead we've ever found."

"I know, I know." Doyle shook his head, looking frustrated. "I just can't shake the feeling we're overlooking something."

"Well, you'd better shake it off – or work it out, fast," Bodie told him as Benton gave them a wave to indicate they were ready for the off. "We're out of time."

The first of the UNIT vehicles started to move out, but Doyle still looked troubled. Bodie pulled his car door open but hesitated before getting in, waiting to see what his partner would do. Then he spotted a vehicle entering the yard, against the flow of traffic.

"Look out, here's your new partner," he teased Doyle as Sullivan drove over and pulled up just behind their car, presumably making a beeline for them because they were the only ones still standing around talking instead of in a moving vehicle already. "You just made it," Bodie called out to him as he got out of the jeep.

"Did Wilson talk?" Doyle asked at the same moment.

"A little, before he went into surgery." Sullivan regarded the departing convoy with a quizzical expression. "Have I missed something?"

"Your relief didn't tell you? We've got a location for the warehouse Eddie Stanton runs his gun-running operation from," Bodie told him. Gun-running and various other lucrative little sidelines no one had yet managed to prove, for that matter. "So we're off to see if that missing alien of yours is there." And it had better be there, he privately added, because there was no Plan B for if this didn't work out.

Sullivan frowned, which was not quite the reaction Bodie had expected. "Stanton? I say," he murmured, looking dubious. "That can't be right."

Bodie groaned. "Not you as well."

"Why, what did Wilson say?" Doyle demanded, pointedly adding, "See, it's not just me."

"'Don't tell Mr Stanton'," Sullivan replied. "That's what Wilson said: 'don't tell Mr Stanton.' It was Galbraith he talked about. But they're business partners, you said?"

"Sort of," Doyle confirmed. "Stanton's very much the senior partner – he calls all the shots."

"Galbraith was at the flying club on Saturday night," Bodie slowly told them. "Haggett said he doesn't usually bother, but he was there that day, came to supervise the shipment."

"So if we assume Galbraith was there when the alien was found…" Doyle mused.

Bodie shook his head, frustrated. "No, it still would have ended up in the same place," he insisted. "All right, Wilson's pointing the finger at Galbraith and Haggett's pointing the finger at Stanton, but they're partners, they work together, so it's all the same in the end, isn't it? Where else would they have taken the creature? Why vary the routine when they've got the whole set-up in place already?"

Doyle didn't look convinced. "But if Wilson said Stanton wasn't to know – wasn't to know what? He had to mean the alien. Wilson knew about the alien, right?" He swung around to direct this question at Sullivan, who nodded.

"Oh yes. He was there when Morley was killed – quite agitated about it, in fact."

"And you know what? That's what we were forgetting," said Doyle, snapping his fingers. "That garage. Where does that fit in, eh? Morley picked Wilson up from there, not some warehouse, before they went off to their meeting with the aliens."

"Wilson was there again this afternoon," Sullivan added, "And his colleague was very keen not to let us talk to him."

Doyle snorted. "He'd have taken all three of us down, if he'd had his way, didn't want us anywhere near that garage. And it's owned by Galbraith, not Stanton; it isn't one of their shared interests. It's quiet, too – make a good hiding place."

The last of the UNIT vehicles was leaving the grounds. Bodie sighed. "So what are we saying?"

"Oh, I don't know." Doyle had his head in his hands, elbows resting on the car roof. He distractedly ran his fingers through his mop of curls and then rested his chin on a palm, frowning thoughtfully. "Just…we're assuming Stanton's involved because the gun-running is his operation, right? So this warehouse of his fits that theory. But if Stanton _isn't_ involved…I mean, what if Galbraith went to the flying club to oversee the shipment for Stanton, but then found himself an alien and an alien weapon and decided not to share. I dunno – maybe he saw an opportunity to branch out on his own, cut Stanton out of the loop. He wouldn't have taken them to that warehouse then, would he? He'd have taken them to a bolthole of his own."

"Such as a disused garage he happens to have on his portfolio," Sullivan agreed, "Which now has gunmen buzzing around to repel all boarders."

"Exactly," Doyle nodded.

It was plausible. And between the two of them they had Bodie doubting his own deductions now. But the UNIT trucks had already gone. Bodie frowned after them, weighing up the options. "We could call them back," he suggested.

Doyle pulled a face. "It's just a hunch," he admitted. "No real evidence either way – they're as likely to be on the right track as us."

"But if we're right, can we afford to waste any more time?" Sullivan put in.

Bodie shook his head, mind made up. "No. No, we'll check it out ourselves, call for backup if we need it, catch them up if we don't."

 

**CI5UNITCI5**

"Of course," said Doyle, as they parked up at a safe distance from the garage and peered down the road toward it, "If there is anything going on in there – or _was_ – they might well have packed up and made a run for it by now. Our little shoot-out earlier wasn't what you'd call inconspicuous." If he'd been in there guarding a captured alien when a pair of his mates got into a gun fight just outside, he'd've been out of there looking for a new hidey-hole the moment the coast was clear. And if it turned out that the alien _had_ been there, while he'd been right outside and hadn't gone in, and it had been moved on already, he would kick himself, he decided. Always supposing the other aliens hadn't destroyed the world by then, of course – and that certainly wasn't something he'd expected, when he woke up this morning, to end the day legitimately worried about.

"Well, we won't know until we go in," Bodie lightly observed. "So how do you want to play it?"

Stealthy was how Doyle wanted to play it. They weren't going to get in through the front anyway, securely locked as it was, even if they were willing to tip off whoever might still be lurking inside, so stealthy it needed to be. He hadn't noticed any handily positioned windows down the side of the building during his brief excursion up the scaffolding earlier, but according to Sullivan there was a yard around the back that sounded promising, so they headed there via the other end of the lane, which came out in a neighbouring street.

Accessing the yard was easy. Getting across it in the failing light without disturbing any of the rusting heaps of junk strewn around the place wasn't, but they made it through the obstacle course without attracting any attention from within, despite one or two bad moments when an unwary foot caught the edge of something unstable. The clatter sounded deafening when you were stood right next to it and were aiming for silence, but no one came looking, so the noise must've seemed innocuous enough to the rest of the world.

They didn't even consider trying to force the back door – too obvious, too risky, and too loud – but further along was a window, which Doyle jemmied to gain access to the building.

"So is breaking and entering an essential job requirement for CI5, may I ask," Sullivan dryly murmured as Doyle slid the window open, wincing as it squealed slightly, "Or merely an optional extra?"

"Whatever it takes to get the job done," Doyle retorted in an equally low voice as he carefully felt his way through the window, luckily enough without knocking anything over, and then scouted around the immediate vicinity while the other two followed.

The room they found themselves in was small, dark and piled high with junk both mechanical and otherwise – some kind of store room, by the looks of it. Doyle was just about to try the door, with fingers crossed that it wasn't locked, when he heard muffled voices on the other side and hastily pressed himself against the wall, gesturing to the other two to hide in case whoever it was came in.

"…telling you, I heard something," someone insisted, just at the edge of audibility.

A second voice replied, this one quieter, harder to make out. "…that dog in the yard again," Doyle heard as it grew closer. There was a brief exchange that he couldn't quite make out, and then the second voice accused the first of being jumpy.

"Course I'm jumpy," the first voice growled, sounding closer still now, "After what's happened – and with that thing up there, gives me the creeps."

"Well hold your nerve," the second snapped. "The boss'll be back soon and then we'll be out of here." There was a scraping noise – the back door being opened. "See – nothing. You're imagining things." The door slammed shut again.

"Weren't nothing earlier," the first voice argued. "Were it? I told you, we should've cleared out already."

"With that thing up there and all those curtain-twitchers, after the fuss earlier?" The voices were fading again now, retreating into the distance as their owners moved away from the door Doyle was pressed behind. "Boss says wait, we wait…got plans…they were on to us we'd…by now…"

Nothing more could be made out as the owners of the voices moved out of earshot. Doyle waited a few moments longer, to be on the safe side, and then looked toward the other two as they emerged from their impromptu and very imperfect hiding places.

"That thing up there," Sullivan quoted in a low murmur.

"Sounded like a 'kidnapped alien here' statement to me," Doyle agreed.

Bodie nodded. "So we look up."

"We look up." Always supposing they could get there, of course.

The store room door was unlocked. That was a bit of luck, saved them having to find another way in. Beyond it was a dingy vestibule containing the back door, with a grimy little washroom set just across the way and a poky hallway leading out to the workshop. There was also a narrow staircase leading up, which was where they needed to go.

They ventured across the hallway to the stairs, but had only managed a few steps before a sudden burst of noise, voices, froze them in their tracks. Doyle had his gun in his hand before he realised it was a radio. Someone had turned a radio on. Well, that would help cover any noise they made as they proceeded, at any rate.

At the foot of the stairs, Bodie gestured his intention to move further into the building and stand guard in case the owners of the voices took it into their heads to come back here again. Doyle nodded his agreement and headed on up, wincing every time a step creaked beneath his feet and dimly aware that Sullivan, just behind him, was attempting to avoid every creaky spot he uncovered, finding a few of his own in the process.

The stairs went up a long way, up to what would have once been the attic, before the building was converted. At the top was a dark, dingy little passage, around which doors were closed to conceal whatever might be on the other side. Doyle glanced at Sullivan to agree that they'd take one each and then picked a door. Inside the murky room behind it was a veritable treasure trove of car parts, both new and old, along with other miscellaneous bits of scrap that had accumulated over the years – but no alien.

Doyle withdrew and turned to see Sullivan closing the door of his room. Catching Doyle's eye, he shook his head to confirm that there was no alien in there, either.

There was a third door. Doyle looked at Sullivan, who lifted his eyebrows and gave a little shrug by way of agreement. They headed for the door together. This one was bolted from the outside but not otherwise locked. Doyle pulled the bolt back and pushed the door open, fumbled for a light switch because there was no window in this room and it was too dark to see much in there.

Illuminated by a single bare bulb, this room, in stark contrast to the other, was almost empty. It contained a wonky table, a couple of bare shelves…and the missing Drashk creature, huddled up on the floor in the far corner, bound hand and foot and securely tethered to the ancient radiator.

The other aliens, on the farm earlier, had been some distance away, close enough to be recognised as aliens, if only because there was very definitely nothing and no one on Earth that looked like that, but too far to really get a good look at. This one was right here, up close and personal, cowering and cringing as if it expected a beating. Doyle stood in the doorway and stared at it, transfixed by the sheer _alien-ness_ of the creature, the animalistic features and the fur and the tattered spacesuit it was wearing and the _ears_ , which were enormous, and….

Sullivan pushed past him and hurried over to the creature, without hesitation, started talking to it as if it were a person. "It's all right, old chap, it's all right, we're not going to hurt you," he soothed as the creature shivered and shuddered and huddled into itself – God only knew what those bastards had done to it, for it to be so afraid. "We're going to get you out of here and take you back to your people. Can you tell me your name?" Wide-eyed, the creature growled something incomprehensible by way of reply and Sullivan nodded as he very gently started to untie the ropes binding it. "Logh, is it? All right, Logh, my name is Harry, I'm a doctor. Are you hurt at all?"

Before the creature could reply, a barrage of shouts broke out below, startling them all.

Bodie. And he was in trouble.

As he reached for his gun, Doyle was already running, snapping, "Stay here," over his shoulder at Sullivan and the creature as he went. Barrelling downstairs, he heard shots being fired somewhere down there. He plastered himself against the wall at the bottom of the stairwell, trying to get a feel for what was going on where from the noise, then made a run for it, flung himself down the hallway and against the wall at the end of it and carefully peered around the open doorway into the workshop to try to see what was going on, hopefully without giving himself away.

Bodie was pinned down in the far corner, behind a rusting heap of junk that looked as if it had come in for its annual service about a decade ago and been left here to rot ever since. There was another car on a hoist in the centre of the workshop, making it difficult to get a good view across the service area, but Doyle could make out two men, the owners of the voices they'd heard earlier, one tall and wiry with a thin little comb-over that came nowhere near concealing his baldness, while the other was heavyset with thick ginger hair. They both had plenty of cover, given how much equipment and accumulated junk was scattered around the place, and they were advancing toward Bodie from both sides – if he tried to move to get a clear shot at one of them, the other would have him. He was stuck. And the gun in the ginger one's hand, Doyle suddenly realised with mounting alarm, wasn't just a handgun but rather was a complicated affair that could only be the captured alien weapon – and he was moving in on Bodie, would have him in his sights in no time, even if that weapon weren't powerful enough to take out both Bodie and the car he was hiding behind in one shot.

Doyle didn't have a clear shot, either, from his position, but he did have the advantage of surprise, so he leaned around the corner and took a few pot shots anyway, distracted the goons long enough for Bodie to move – it would only buy his partner a few seconds to get to a new position, but that was going to have to be enough. Then he dived behind a crate nearby, as the closest point of cover available, because he'd be completely exposed if he stayed in that doorway once the goons knew he was there.

But now he couldn't see where anyone was, following that little burst of movement. And although less exposed than he'd been in the doorway, this wasn't a good position. He risked a quick peek to try to establish the lie of the land and across the room saw Bodie likewise poke his head out and give him a quick nod, before laying down a burst of covering fire in turn to allow Doyle to move to a better position.

As he ran, though, Doyle heard the crack of a gun that wasn't Bodie's and, out of the corner of his eye, saw his partner go down, felt an icy fist clutch at his heart. Damndamndamndamndamn.

Wheeling around, he fired furiously at the man who'd just shot Bodie – the one with the comb-over, not the other one, so a handgun not that alien weapon, thank God, although potentially just as deadly. He missed, but did at least have the very small satisfaction of seeing the man drop his gun as he dived for cover. Then he realised with a sudden chill that he'd left himself exposed and had lost track of the other man. Whirling around, he had only a split second to take in the sight of Ginger wielding that alien weapon, aimed right at him, right between the eyes. No time to react, no time to run, nowhere to hide, Doyle sucked in a breath and braced himself for the bolt of lightning he knew was coming…and then Sullivan came diving out of the hallway and rugby-tackled Ginger even as he pulled the trigger.

The lightning bolt missed Doyle's head by about two inches, at most; he felt the heat of it crackling by, singeing his hair as it blazed past him and exploded into the partition wall beyond, sending shrapnel flying all around. He ducked instinctively, throwing his arms over his head to protect himself from the flying shards.

As he picked himself up, Sullivan and Ginger were wrestling for control of the lightning gun, but as Doyle started over to help, he spotted Comb-Over crawling out from behind that rusty old car Bodie'd been hiding behind earlier, trying to retrieve his gun, which lay nearby.

Doyle's gun jammed. He dropped it and dived for Comb-Over's instead and got there first, just barely, used it to club the man across the head and knock him out, then turned to see Ginger doing much the same thing to Sullivan before aiming that lightning gun at him while he was still stunned.

Doyle hastily raised Comb-Over's gun, knowing he wasn't going to be in time – but then a shot rang out from the other side of the room and Ginger dropped like a stone, the lightning gun falling from his suddenly nerveless hand before he could press the trigger.

Bodie. Bodie'd fired the shot. Relief washed over Doyle like a wave at the sight of his partner more or less on his feet. He was okay, thank God for that. Then Bodie dropped his gun and sank to the floor again, cursing and clutching at his arm, and Doyle hurried over and knelt alongside him to take a look. The bullet had caught his upper arm, it turned out – painful, no doubt, to say nothing of bloody, but not serious, not in the grand scheme of things, certainly not compared with what he'd been afraid of, for a moment there.

"Getting careless in your old age, sunshine," he mock chided and was rewarded with an exasperated roll of the eyes. Yeah, Bodie was fine.

"Did we find it?" he asked through gritted teeth.

"Yeah, we found it," Doyle confirmed, glancing across to see if Sullivan was all right. He'd already picked himself up and was heading over to them, rubbing at his head and looking a bit groggy but apparently not too much the worse for the pistol-whipping he'd just taken, although he'd have one hell of a shiner come morning. Ginger clearly hadn't hit as hard as Doyle did, since Comb-Over was still out for the count.

Another advantage to running around with a doctor in tow was having medical attention on the spot when your partner got himself shot, so Doyle moved aside to let him take a look at Bodie's arm and went to find something to tie Comb-Over up with before he came round, then returned to see how Bodie was getting on. Sullivan had helped him get his coat off and had torn his shirt sleeve open so he could examine the wound properly, while Bodie scowled and grumbled his discomfort. The alien – what had Sullivan called it? Logh? – was there too, now, crouched alongside the doctor as he worked, clutching at the sleeve of his jacket with its talon-like fingers, a gesture that made it look like a frightened child with a security blanket, which was a strange image to reconcile with its animalistic appearance and the belligerence of its colleagues. You'd think having it clinging onto a sleeve like that would be a nuisance for someone who was trying to use his hands, but Sullivan didn't seem to mind, or at least wasn't making a fuss about it.

"So what's the verdict, doc?" Doyle asked, giving Bodie a little thump on his good arm for solidarity as he crouched to take a look.

"Oh, I think he'll live." Sullivan flashed a reassuring grin at him. "Could you see if there's some kind of first aid box around," he asked, "Or anything clean that would do as a bandage? And some water for Logh, as well, if you don't mind – he's dreadfully dehydrated."

Something clean in this place? He'd be lucky. A cursory scan of the service area showed no sign of anything resembling a first aid box, so Doyle headed over to the office to see if there was anything in there. The windows overlooking the workshop had been blown out and the partition wall half-demolished by that lightning bolt, so the room was littered with glass, brick dust and other debris, on top of the pre-existing clutter, which didn't exactly help with his search. He couldn't see anything lying around anywhere obvious, so rifled through the drawers of the battered desk and the mismatched cabinets against the far wall, increasingly convinced that he wasn't going to find anything useful, until finally, shoved to the back of the bottom drawer of the very last filing cabinet, there it was – a first aid kit, of sorts. It wasn't well stocked and was falling apart, but it had bandages in it still, which was what mattered. Tucking his find under his arm, Doyle hastily tipped some glass and brick dust out of a cracked and mouldering mug that'd been left on the desk and then sloshed a bit of water into it from the half-filled kettle in the corner. That was going to have to do.

Turning to return to the others, he was surprised to see that the alien had followed him into the office and was stood in the doorway regarding him quizzically. It said something – or at least, Doyle assumed it was saying something, but it just sounded like growling to his untrained ears and his translator was a bit busy seeing to Bodie's gunshot wound just at the minute.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand," he awkwardly told the creature, and then felt stupid for saying anything at all, because it couldn't understand him, either, so what was the point of even trying? He held out the mug of water instead, and the creature eyed him warily. "Go on, take it," Doyle urged, taking a step closer. "It's water."

The alien, Logh, looked from Doyle to the mug to Doyle again, then reached out, very tentatively, to take the mug from him, and knocked the water back in one thirsty gulp.

"Want some more?" Doyle retrieved the kettle and gestured at the mug with it, hoping the creature would understand, before cautiously edging closer to refill the mug.

Sipping at the water a bit less greedily this time, Logh growled something again and pointed at the desk behind Doyle, so he turned to see what it was on about. The desk was littered with mouldy old mugs and dog-eared papers, as well as a fresh layer of dirt and broken glass caused by that lightning bolt to the partition wall…but there was also some kind of device, he belatedly noticed, sitting alongside the phone. An alien device – he couldn't have said how he knew that, he just knew that it didn't look like anything a human would have built, in the same way that the lightning gun didn't resemble any human weapons. He rather gingerly picked the device up and held it out to Logh, whose sharp, pointed furry face seemed to light up with delight that he'd understood what it – he – wanted.

Logh fiddled with the device for a moment and then spoke again, his voice still an incomprehensible growl to Doyle's ears…but this time the growl was closely followed by a more human voice that emanated from the device in his hands, translating that growl into English.

"Thank you," he said.

 

**UNITUNITUNIT**

The shooting had stopped now that the last few hold-outs had been rounded up. But something still wasn't right here.

Regimental Sergeant-Major Benton stood at the entrance to a small, secluded warehouse in East London, watching as his men systematically ransacked the place, and fretted.

They'd arrived expecting trouble. If a bunch of crooks had kidnapped an alien and had access to alien weaponry, trouble was inevitable. What they hadn't expected was to walk into the middle of some kind of gang war. As far as Benton could make out, the ringleader of the bunch, Eddie Stanton, had arrived at the warehouse with a buyer – some kind of Middle Eastern big-job that the political boys would no doubt be interested in – to find his business partner James Galbraith in the middle of pilfering a supply of the weapons they had stockpiled for sale. All hell had already been in the process of breaking out by the time UNIT arrived and waded into the middle of it.

Someone whose job it was to be interested in the illegal arms trade or counter-terrorism, anything along those lines, would be having an absolute field day here. There was enough weaponry stockpiled to wage a small war – and not just any weaponry, either. This was top-of-the-range stuff, cutting edge, mostly foreign in origin and very, very illegal. There was also an office full of paperwork: records and accounts and forged documentation that would keep the legal boys busy for weeks.

But it wasn't Benton's job to be interested in the illegal arms trade, although what he thought about it privately was his own concern. Counter-terrorism wasn't his business, either. And so he was deeply troubled because what they hadn't found anywhere on the premises, no matter how hard they looked, was the captured alien whose safe return to its people was necessary to prevent some kind of Armageddon being unleashed. There was no sign of the stolen alien weapon, either. They'd managed to take most of the men alive, but Stanton was dead and Galbraith too badly wounded to answer questions and none of their hired goons seemed to know anything. And they were running out of time, fast.

"Sir." Private Walsh came jogging over wielding a radio handset. "It's Dr Sullivan, he wants to speak to you or the Brigadier."

Sullivan was supposed to have joined them on this operation but hadn't turned up – and those agents from CI5 were meant to be here, too, only they seemed to have gone missing in action, as well. Benton took the handset, instructing Walsh to go find the Brigadier, and then listened to what Sullivan had to say with mounting disbelief.

It was quite a brief conversation. After signing off, Benton found himself staring at the handset, open-mouthed. "I don't believe it," he muttered, and then went to find the Brigadier himself.

As it turned out, the Brigadier was already on his way over – and he looked worried. "Ah, Mr Benton," he called, sounding grim. "I've just had a report that Space Control have picked up something large on radar, rapidly approaching orbit. It's the Drashk mothership. And HQ report that the transmission has started up again, localised from Elderbrook Farm – the aliens there making contact with their people, I should imagine. Is Lieutenant Sullivan here yet? We'll need to get out to that farm immediately to negotiate, but they may not be willing to listen to reason, so I'll have to warn the minister to expect reprisals for the loss of that alien crewman –"

"No, sir," Benton hurriedly told him, "You won't need to do that. I've just heard from Dr Sullivan. He's with those agents from CI5 – they've found the missing alien."

The Brigadier blinked at him in surprise. "Found it? Where?"

"At that garage where Dr Sullivan and Mr Doyle picked up that suspect earlier – I don't really know why they went back there. He said they were acting on a hunch," Benton explained, feeling rather aggrieved that they hadn't bothered to let anyone know what they were doing. "They're on their way out to Elderbrook Farm as we speak to return the creature to the rest of its group so they can tell the mothership to stand down and pick them up."

The Brigadier regarded him impassively for a moment, his expression absolutely unreadable. "Do they need backup?" was all he said.

"Apparently not, sir," Benton told him, feeling slightly miffed on that point, as well. "They seem to think they're better off not waiting for us to catch up."

The Brigadier frowned. "No, they're right. With the mothership already approaching, we can't afford to lose any more time," he said. "The sooner that creature is reunited with the rest of its crew and off our hands the better. No, they're better off going straight there, before any offensive action can be taken against us for failing to return the wretched thing in good time."

"I suppose so, sir," Benton conceded. "There is a squadron out at the farm, still, on guard," he added. "They can assist if things get hairy. But they did request a follow-up team to secure the scene at the garage, so I'll get on to that at once. And since we know now we're not going to find anything here, shall I order the men to pack up?"

The Brigadier looked thoughtful. "No," he mused. "No, we've stirred up a hornet's nest here and we can't leave the job half done. Our friends at CI5 are very keen to see this operation shut down, and since we've taken their agents away from that task, the least we can do is see it through for them. I'll take a team out to the farm myself, to be on the safe side – I think we can trust Lieutenant Sullivan to handle the situation, but a higher ranking negotiator may be required, given all that's happened. In the meantime, I'd like you to finish up here, Mr Benton."

With a sigh, Benton accepted that his role today was going to be police work all the way. "Yes, sir," he resignedly agreed.

 

**CI5UNITCI5**

There was an alien in the backseat. Now that was something you didn't get to say every day. Wouldn't want to, either – it wasn't the most comfortable feeling in the world, having a thing like that sat right behind you.

Not that this journey would have been comfortable for Bodie even without the alien in the backseat, since country roads, high speeds and gunshot wounds weren't a good mix. Biting back another grunt of discomfort as the car rattled and jerked its way along, he was grateful for the hefty strapping the doctor had applied to his wound before immobilising the arm in a sling, since without that this journey would have been even more intolerable. Doyle seemed to be on a mission to hit every pothole the road had to offer.

"Sorry," he muttered, looking contrite. "I daren't slow down."

"No, you're all right, you keep going," Bodie told him through gritted teeth. They'd been informed that the Drashk mothership had reached orbit, which meant that time really was against them now. The alien, Logh, had used its communication device to inform its colleagues that it was safe and on its way back to them, but they apparently weren't entirely convinced that it wasn't another trick or double cross, and at this point no one wanted to take any chances.

It – Logh – was on the communicator again now, listening intently as the other aliens growled away. Then it – he, whatever – leaned forward and picked up the translation device. "They ask how far we are. A shuttle has been despatched to collect and they wish not to wait. This place is not safe."

Bodie instinctively bridled at the insinuation. The aliens had killed two men, had tried to kill them, had issued dire threats against mankind in general – and now they were claiming to not feel safe? But he'd already had this conversation with Sullivan, back at the garage while his gunshot wound was being treated. He'd sounded off about the pains they were going to for the sake of pacifying creatures that were effectively holding them to ransom at gunpoint, and the doctor had said, 'I agree that they've behaved dreadfully, but so did the humans they made first contact with, so I daresay we could run around that circle all day. What matters now is avoiding further bloodshed.' And he did have something of a point. It was a messy situation on all sides, that was the bottom line, and the sooner it was resolved, the happier everyone concerned would be – and the safer the rest of the world would be.

"Tell 'em we're nearly there," Doyle called over his shoulder.

He wasn't close enough to the translation device for it to pick up his words and render them into a growl the alien could understand, though, so Sullivan translated instead. "We're not far away now. Tell them to expect us within minutes."

"You know, I'd still like to know how that little party trick works," Doyle remarked, and he was right, it made no sense at all that the alien could understand Sullivan but not them when they were all speaking the same language.

"Yes," Sullivan mildly agreed, "So would I."

That made no sense either. "You mean you don't know how you do it?" Bodie protested, puzzled. "How can you not know?"

"It's rather complicated. And a longer story than I believe we have time for just now," was all Sullivan would say.

Bodie looked at Doyle, who rolled his eyes and shrugged. "I've already had this conversation," he said. "That's as good as you're going to get."

Sullivan was right about not having time for long stories, anyway. They reached the farm just a few minutes later. The UNIT soldiers guarding the gate had obviously been forewarned to expect them, as they weren't challenged upon their approach; the soldiers simply stood back and let them speed straight past.

It was dark now, but not so dark that they couldn't see the three aliens, the Drashk, who they'd seen on the farm earlier, standing out in the yard waiting for them, lit up by the car headlights, guns at the ready. They really were afraid this would turn out to be another double-cross, clearly. Doyle slowed right down the moment he saw them and brought the car to a halt a short distance away, and the three Drashk weapons were instantly brought to bear on them. Doyle shot a wide-eyed glance at Bodie that echoed his own feelings about this insane situation. It had seemed like such a normal day when he got up this morning.

"Your friends seem awfully tense, old chap," Sullivan observed to Logh. "You'd best go show them you're still in one piece – and perhaps you might warn them not to shoot us, while you're at it."

That was their cue to start moving. Exchanging a quick, apprehensive look with Doyle, Bodie carefully pulled at the door handle. The waiting Drashk tensed up all the more as the door swung open, all three lightning guns trained on the car, fingers on triggers, so he made sure to keep his hands in the air, weapon out of sight, as he gingerly slid out of the vehicle and then even more gingerly reached back into it to pull the seat forward so that his rear passengers could exit.

The relief of the Drashk was palpable as Logh emerged from the car and stepped into view. He scurried over to them and they lowered their weapons at once to pounce on him, quickly hauling him into their midst as if to protect him from anyone else who might feel inclined to abduct him again – they were so preoccupied with their newly restored colleague that they barely even seemed to remember that the humans were there. Bodie kept his eyes fixed on them, though, in case the situation turned again, while Sullivan quickly checked the dressing on his arm, which was sore but had held up to that journey better than he'd expected; the doctor seemed satisfied with it.

"What are they saying?" Doyle asked, watching the Drashk reunion with interest.

"They're very happy to see him," said Sullivan, rather unhelpfully, since that much was patently obvious. He listened carefully to the growling and snarling as the aliens gabbed away at each other, fussing over Logh and gesticulating in their direction. "Um…they're pleased to have him back intact, but rather concerned because they can see that he's been mistreated. He's assuring them that he's all right. And now he's telling them that we're the good guys, that we rescued him."

Logh's testimony seemed to swing Drashk opinion in their favour, as the aliens holstered their weapons before advancing toward them, Logh in their midst. One of them – the one who'd been so belligerent earlier, who seemed to be their leader – took a step forward to head the little group, and said something incomprehensible.

"You're quite welcome," said Sullivan.

Bodie was getting fed up of being out of the loop now, especially since there was a way to avoid it. "Where's that translation thing?" he wanted to know, and could hear the exasperation in his own voice but didn't care. His arm was hurting and it had been a very long day.

"Oh yes, of course – sorry." Sullivan ducked back into the car and came out bearing Logh's gun and communicator and the translation device, which he held out to the aliens. "I believe these belong to you."

The Lead Drashk took the devices, handed the gun and communicator back to Logh but kept the translation device in its own hands – or possibly _her_ own hands. Up close, she appeared to be female, strange though it was to be able to tell, given the alien anatomy and costume. "I thank you again," she said via the device. "I did not believe, when we met earlier, that you would keep your word. I see that I was wrong. We had feared that all humans would be as those we first met."

"Yes, it's a dreadful shame you were given such a poor first impression of us," Sullivan agreed. He had a real gift for understatement, Bodie felt. If Logh hadn't been unlucky enough to run into Galbraith and his crew in the first place, none of this would have happened.

The Drashk quickly conferred among themselves again for a moment, and then another of them, the one Doyle had dubbed 'Mr Sunshine' earlier, stepped forward and took the translation device. "We wish to offer apology," he said, "For those that were killed. We acted to defend, but now regret the loss of life."

"Thank you for that," Sullivan quietly replied, and there was silence for a moment.

"So what happens now?" Doyle asked at length – and then had to repeat the question when Mr Sunshine offered the translation device for him to use, since it hadn't picked up his words.

"A shuttle will come to collect," Mr Sunshine replied via the device. "Very near now."

"What about the air strikes?" Bodie suddenly thought to ask. Mr Sunshine promptly held the translation device out for him and he gingerly accepted it, one-handed, and wondered how it worked.

"It's on, you just have to speak," Doyle helpfully explained from his lofty vantage point of having already used the wretched thing.

Bodie rolled his eyes at him for showing off and then repeated the question, marvelling at the sound of his own voice rendered into Drashk growls. "You talked about air strikes earlier, reprisals. Have those been called off?" Just because the aliens were playing nice now, he couldn't forget their previous aggression – understandable, perhaps, given the way they'd been treated by Galbraith and his men, meeting hostility with counter hostility, but it didn't hurt to remain cautious. The question needed to be asked.

The Lead Drashk took the translation device back. "You have kept your word," she said. "The safe return of Crewman Logh was all we wished and we are grateful for it. There will be no further action. We leave you in peace."

Handing the device to her right hand man Mr Sunshine again, she pulled out a communicator and growled into it – and just moments later a rumbling sound filled the air.

It was a spaceship, an honest to God spaceship. It descended from the night sky to hover above the farm and Bodie felt his mouth drop open at the sight. Just when he'd thought this bizarre, insane day had no shocks left to offer, just when he'd thought he was coming to terms with the existence of aliens, which was hard to deny when they were standing right there in front of him, along came another sucker punch. It was all very well to understand, logically, that these aliens had come from somewhere in outer space and had travelled in a spaceship, but it was another thing entirely to actually see that spaceship, hanging in the sky above his head. He looked at Doyle to see how he was taking it and saw incredulity and wonder in his partner's eyes that echoed his own sentiments entirely.

"Thank you and farewell," said the Lead Drashk, very formally, and then Logh took the translation device from her.

"Yes," he said, scampering forward to reach out and gently touch a hand of each of them in turn, those talons of his safely curled downward and away so as not to scratch – this fist-bump the Drashk equivalent of a handshake, perhaps? "Thank you."

He darted back to rejoin his colleagues…and then there was a flash of light and all four aliens disappeared. Just like that. One moment they were standing right there and the next they were gone.

Bodie blinked. He stared at the spot where the aliens had been standing a moment earlier, then looked up at the ship, which was starting to gain height, heading into space once more, and then looked back at the empty patch of ground again. Then he looked at Doyle, whose mouth had dropped open in amazement.

"We both saw that, right?" Doyle muttered. "Didn't we? I mean, it's not just me losing my marbles, or something?"

"No, we both saw it," Bodie firmly agreed and then turned to Sullivan to see if he had any explanation to offer.

Sullivan did not look the slightest bit surprised by this turn of events. Hands stuffed in pockets, he was frowning up at the departing spaceship with a thoughtful expression on his face. "Do you know, I'm sure they didn't need to do that," he said in a conversational tone, apropos of nothing.

Bodie tried to make sense of this remark, but failed. "What?"

"Bringing that shuttle all the way down here like that, for us to see. I'm sure they didn't need to, if they were going to transmat up anyway. It would have worked perfectly well from orbit – at least, the ones I've seen always seemed to work well over quite vast distances."

"I didn't understand a word of that," said Doyle, and Bodie agreed – it was all so much double Dutch.

"You're talking about that little disappearing act, right? 'Beam me up, Scotty', type of thing?" He caught a quick sideways glance from Doyle, who seemed both amused and surprised by the reference, and could only shrug. It fit, after all.

"Yes, it's called transmat – a matter transmitter," Sullivan explained. He wrinkled his nose and rubbed at his head. "Rather a disconcerting way to travel, I always found, but you certainly can't beat it for speed."

Bodie narrowed his eyes. "That sounds suspiciously like the voice of experience," he observed, and the doctor's eyes sparkled with sudden amusement.

"You could say that, yes," he wryly agreed, flashing a mischievous little grin at them, before turning back to the car, all business once more. "We'll need to set up some kind of cordon around the area, I suppose – the locals are bound to have spotted the shuttle, so there'll be sightseers here in no time, on the prowl for UFOs."

Well, that was a valid point, yes, but it was also an evasion of the issue. Bodie looked at Doyle, who nodded that no, they weren't going to let him get away with that any longer. As one, they hurried after him and slung an arm each around his shoulders.

"There are still one or two loose ends to tie up, of course," Doyle agreed.

"But afterward," Bodie continued, "When we haven't written those reports that we aren't going to be allowed to write, the three of us are going to go out for a drink together, someplace nice and quiet."

"That's right," said Doyle. "Someplace nice and quiet where you can tell us that long story you mentioned earlier – a story about talking to aliens and about transmats and all the rest of it."

As Sullivan shook their arms off and turned to face them, he was laughing. "Oh, I'd be quite happy to let you buy me a drink," he said. "I'll even tell you my story, if you really want to hear it – but I can't imagine you'll believe a word of it."

"After what we've seen today," said Doyle, "I think it's just possible that we might."

But both the drink and the story were going to have to wait a while longer, it seemed, as a UNIT vehicle was now thundering down the track toward them. It was Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.

"Well, gentlemen, it appears I'm a little late to join the action," he ruefully noted as he climbed out of his jeep.

"I'm afraid so, sir," Sullivan replied. "The Drashk weren't keen to hang around, once we'd returned their missing crewman."

"Yes, I saw their ship taking off – that'll stir up the locals, eh," the Brigadier crisply noted. "All go off without a hitch?"

"Strangely enough, yes, sir," Sullivan nodded. "They were extremely grateful for the return of their colleague – and they also apologised for the deaths of Corporal Parker and Clive Morley."

The Brigadier looked grim. "Well, that's something, I suppose. More than we usually get."

"Yes, sir. I'm sorry for not keeping you in the loop," Sullivan added. "It all happened rather fast."

"Yes, the Doctor was a bad influence on you, Lieutenant," the Brigadier rather cryptically remarked, and, whatever he meant by that, it sounded as if it should be a criticism – except that he seemed amused, rather than annoyed, while Sullivan was completely unperturbed.

"I imagine that's true, sir," he replied, far too cheerfully for the Brigadier's observation to have been a rebuke. There was a history there, a tacit understanding between the UNIT officers of something no outsider could hope to decipher, and Bodie wondered what their chances were of ever getting Sullivan to explain things fully, drink or no drink.

"Well done," the Brigadier told the doctor. "I'll expect a report on my desk in the morning."

"Of course, sir."

"Mr Bodie," the Brigadier continued, turning to him, "You appear to have been in the wars."

"Ah, yes," Bodie agreed, casting a rueful glance down at his wounded arm, securely strapped up in its sling. "Yes. It's not that bad, sir – the doc took good care of it."

"That's only a field dressing, of course," Sullivan immediately reminded him. "It still needs to be attended to properly." Bodie pulled a face at the thought of it, and the doctor took pity on him and added, "But if you'd rather not make a trip to hospital, I can see to it in our sick bay at UNIT; we've got the facilities."

Bodie nodded his agreement to this plan and the Brigadier looked pleased. "Well, Mr Bodie, Mr Doyle – I'd like to thank you both for your invaluable assistance on this investigation," he said. "Of course, you aren't required to submit written reports, but your account of today's events would be extremely useful for our records." So in other words, while not technically compulsory, they weren't going to get out of writing up reports about the day's events, after all. "I must stress, however, that there is a strict confidentiality clause attached to any UNIT investigation," the Brigadier added.

"You mean we aren't allowed to tell anyone back at CI5 what's happened," said Doyle, rolling his eyes. "Not even Mr Cowley."

"I'm afraid not, no," the Brigadier confirmed. "But if that causes any problems for you, you'll have my full backing."

"I shouldn't fancy trying to explain all this to him, anyway," Bodie wryly remarked. The mere thought of even attempting that conversation made him shudder. Not that the thought of telling the old man they weren't allowed to tell him what they'd done today was any better, mind. "By the way, sir," he added, "Mind if I ask how you got on at the warehouse? I know the alien wasn't being held there, but…"

"But it is still at the centre of a sizeable arms smuggling ring," the Brigadier nodded. "There actually seemed to be some kind of internal coup going on when we got there."

"Internal coup?" Bodie frowned, trying to tie this information together with what they already knew, or thought they knew.

"It appears Mr Stanton caught his business partner Galbraith pilfering the stock, shortly before we arrived."

"Pilfering the…you mean the weapons?" Doyle smacked Bodie's arm – the uninjured one, thankfully. "Remember those bully-boys at the garage," he said. "They said something about the boss having a plan, didn't they? Maybe that was the plan: nick a load of heavy artillery –"

"And try to take the rest of the aliens by force, since the blackmail attempt backfired on them so spectacularly?" Bodie mused, seeing where his partner was heading with this. He wrinkled his nose. "It's possible, I suppose." They'd certainly seemed stupid enough to try it. "It was Galbraith who was behind the abduction of the alien, you see, sir," he added for the Brigadier's benefit.

"I see," said the Brigadier. "Well, I shall look forward to hearing a full account of your activities and theories later. For now, I think you've provided all the assistance you can, so I suggest you get that arm seen to. Lieutenant, I'll attend to the mopping up here and leave the agents in your capable hands," he added, turning to Sullivan.

"Aye-aye, sir," Sullivan agreed as the Brigadier swung himself back into his jeep and headed off to harass the troops that were still scattered around the place.

Bodie watched him go and then turned to the doctor. "Looks like you're riding with us again."

"Apparently so," he nodded.

"Back to your place, then," said Doyle, "To get Bodie's arm seen to."

"Yeah, and after that we'll find a pub somewhere," Bodie added. "And you can buy us that drink we were talking about."

Sullivan frowned. "Steady on, now, why am I buying the drinks all of a sudden?" he protested. "I thought we'd agreed that you would buy me a drink."

"Hey, you might not remember it, but I saved your life today, sunshine," Bodie teasingly pointed out.

"Well, yeah, and he saved my life," Doyle chipped in, unexpectedly sticking up for the doctor, "And fixed your arm."

Bodie looked at Sullivan, who raised his eyebrows. Bodie nodded. "Right, then," he said, "That settles it. Doyle's buying the drinks!"

 

**CI5CI5CI5**

When Doyle put his head around the door of the agents' lounge at CI5 headquarters the next morning, Bodie was already there, sat at the table reading a paper as if nothing had happened.

"Yesterday happened, right?" Doyle demanded. It had felt real enough at the time, but now, in the cold light of a new day, it was a bit like remembering a dream, too ludicrous to possibly be true. "Or did I imagine the whole thing?"

"Your imagination's not that good, mate," Bodie dryly retorted. Then he gestured at the newspaper strewn across the table in front of him. "According to this, nothing the slightest bit untoward happened yesterday. But I don't think I'm imagining this hole in my arm." He pulled at the sling encasing his wounded arm, grimacing slightly, and Doyle eyed him appraisingly.

"Should you be in?"

"Oh, it's all right. I've had worse," he shrugged – a one-shouldered shrug, given the injury.

Doyle wasn't convinced but let it slide for now, dropping onto the chair opposite him with a groan. "Remind me never to go out drinking with a sailor again, even if…no, _especially_ if he looks like a lightweight," he grumbled. Pausing, he eyed his partner speculatively for a moment, before adding, "So did you believe him?"

"Believe what?"

"Even half of what he told us." Which hadn't been much, truth be told, but Sullivan had given them a few wild stories, which had been entertainingly colourful…albeit also a bit confusing, since whatever the man's talents, narration was definitely not one of them.

Bodie looked pensive. "Honestly?" he wryly replied, "I don't think he told us even the half of it."

And that wasn't what Doyle wanted to hear, but was more or less the conclusion he'd come to himself. "Yeah," he ruefully agreed. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

It was a sobering thought, at that. Sullivan's stories about giant space bugs and the Loch Ness monster had been entertainingly colourful, enough that it was tempting to write them off as hopelessly exaggerated, but, on the other hand, the earnest UNIT doctor wasn't really the type for that kind of tall tale, and after what they'd seen yesterday…no. No, he hadn't been exaggerating – holding back, if anything, saying just enough to give them a taste of some of the incredible things he'd seen during his career with UNIT, but offering no actual detail. And he never had explained that talking to aliens trick of his, not really. At the end of the day, while Doyle and Bodie had seen enough to take them to the other side of UNIT's confidentiality clause, that clearly only took them so far; they were still outsiders, and if there was one thing UNIT was good at, it was protecting its secrets – the absence of any UFO reports in this morning's papers made that much crystal clear.

They were probably better off not knowing, come to that. And that was a sobering thought, too.

Bodie shifted position slightly, letting out a little hiss of pain as he jarred his wounded arm, and Doyle frowned. "Are you sure you should be in?"

"Yeah, it's not that bad," he insisted. "The doc said I was good to go."

"No, he didn't," Doyle retorted. "He said you were good to go home. He didn't say anything about work in the morning."

Bodie pulled a face at him. "Such a stickler for detail."

"I'm glad to hear it," said a crisp voice from behind them.

It was Cowley. They hastily scrambled to their feet as he swept into the room, almost quivering with indignation.

"It appears I am not allowed to ask you what happened yesterday," he announced with no further preamble, face like thunder, "Orders from Sir John Sudbury himself. Is there any particular reason why the activities of my top agents are being kept from me? Or am I not allowed to ask that, either?"

Doyle said, "Um…" and got no further, looked at Bodie and saw that he was also floundering. "Sorry, sir," he offered.

"I've had men working on the Stanton case for months now," Cowley fumed, "Painstakingly pulling evidence together. I wanted it watertight before we made a move. And then UNIT go wading in with their size nines and trample all over the investigation – all that effort, ruined in a single day!"

Doyle looked at Bodie, who shrugged and said, "As I understand it, sir, they managed a pretty effective take down of the…"

His voice tailed off as Cowley fixed him with a cold, hard glare. "Stanton is dead, Galbraith will probably join him, and now we'll never unravel the full extent of their operation, how many pies they had their fingers in."

"I believe a large amount of evidence was uncovered at Stanton's warehouse," Doyle offered, more in hope than expectation of mollifying his boss. "Contacts, buyers, that kind of thing."

"Aye, and the bulk of that evidence is now locked down behind UNIT's security classification!" Cowley seethed.

Ah, so that was the problem. And yes, Doyle could see how it might be tricky, from UNIT's perspective, to sift through what information could be safely released to partner agencies and what was too sensitive to allow out there; that certainly wouldn't be a quick job. But saying so wasn't going to improve Cowley's mood any, and nor would the revelation that UNIT weren't actually the slightest bit interested in Stanton's gun running operation, taking it down had just been a side benefit of a completely different investigation.

"If it makes you feel any better," he offered, "I think we may have helped save the world yesterday…"

Bodie promptly trod heavily on his foot, while Cowley skewered him with a glare. "This is no joking matter, Doyle," he fumed.

"No, didn't think so," he murmured.

"This was _my_ investigation – a tin pot organisation like UNIT had no business going anywhere near it. And just what exactly is so secret about a raid on an arms smuggling ring, eh? Tell me that."

They couldn't tell him that. That was the trouble.

"Um," said Doyle.

"Cat got your tongue, Doyle?"

"On the bright side, sir," Bodie interjected in that bright, brittle tone he used when he was trying to lighten the mood, "We have formed some useful new contacts at UNIT –"

"How is that useful?" Cowley snapped. "You're expecting to work with them again, are you?"

"God, I hope not," Doyle fervently replied. Once was more than enough.

"That's the first sensible thing I've heard you say yet, Doyle," Cowley snorted, glowering. There was nothing he could do and they all knew it. He wasn't allowed to ask and they weren't allowed to tell, and wouldn't know where to begin even if they were. Because this wasn't about the security classification, it was about what lay behind it. But he didn't know that, couldn't know that.

Doyle tried a different tack. "Do you trust us, sir?"

"What?" Cowley narrowed his eyes, as if he thought it was a trick question. It wasn't. It was the simplest question in the world – but also, perhaps, the hardest.

"Me and Bodie – do you trust us?" Because that was what it all came down to, in the end…but it was a thorny question to broach, he knew that, because Cowley couldn't afford to trust anyone, could he? Not in his job, not with all the treachery and betrayal he'd seen. He'd had agents turn on him, trusted associates had stabbed him in the back, he'd rooted out corruption at the very highest level of government…Cowley didn't trust anyone, not really. And yet for this organisation to work effectively, he had to trust his men – didn't he?

Cowley fixed them both with a long, hard glare, sizing them up, that brain of his whizzing away nineteen to the dozen behind those sharp eyes. He never missed a trick, did Cowley. That was why this was hurting him so badly, because he didn't have all the information and so couldn't form a clear picture, couldn't understand what it was all about. Of course he was going to suspect the worst.

At length, he let out a little sigh of resignation. "Aye," he said – reluctantly, maybe, but he was still saying it. "Aye, I do…for whatever that's worth."

Course, he wasn't saying how _far_ he trusted them, but it was enough. "It's worth a lot, thank you, sir," Doyle sincerely told him. "So please, trust us on this. There are reasons why we can't talk about what happened yesterday, but they aren't reasons that need to concern you. UNIT stepped into our investigation, yes, but not for the reasons you're thinking –"

 

"And just what am I thinking, Doyle? Eh? You're a mind reader now, are you?" Cowley furiously snapped. He was spoiling for a fight, that much was clear, but Doyle wasn't going to let himself be drawn; he didn't have to be a mind reader to hazard a guess at the direction Cowley's suspicions were most likely taking him, knowing the man as he did.

"You're thinking that if UNIT took over an investigation on our turf and no one will tell you why, not even us, there must be something shady going on," he bluntly replied, determinedly sticking to his guns, now he'd started, "Somewhere behind the scenes – someone must be up to something, plotting something or covering something up. That's what's happened before, isn't it? But not this time. The truth is, UNIT aren't the slightest bit interested in our work. They stepped into our investigation because it overlapped with a case they were working on, that's all: something that was…well, frankly, it was so far outside our jurisdiction it isn't funny. And that case took precedence, it had to, but they needed us to help because of the overlap – but even then we were only involved by chance, really. That's all it was. And if it was something we thought you needed to know, we'd tell you, we would, classification or no classification. But it isn't. You don't need to know what that UNIT case involved, sir, because it isn't the slightest bit relevant to CI5 operations – and you wouldn't want to know, either."

"Wouldn't believe us, anyway," Bodie wryly chipped in.

"That's right. And we're just going to have to ask you to trust our judgement on that," Doyle finished, running out of steam.

Cowley stared at him, impassive. It was unnerving.

"I don't appear to have much choice in the matter, do I?" he sourly observed at last. "Och, go on, get out of here – out of my sight, the pair of you. Find something useful to do."

It was as close to a 'let's drop this and never speak of it again' as they were going to get. They grabbed it with both hands and made a run for it.

"Nicely played," Bodie approved as they scurried down the hallway, glad to be let off the hook. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Enjoying what?"

Bodie grinned. "Knowing more than Cowley does, for once!"

 

~END~

 

 

written May 2012


End file.
